Zoey Serrano has opened up about the emotional moment she learned WWE was releasing her, and how she is now rebuilding her confidence outside the company.

Speaking on Zoey’s 1001, Serrano, formerly known as Zoey Stark, said the call brought her five-year WWE run to an unexpected end. She had only recently been cleared following a knee injury and was at the gym when the news arrived.

Although she knew releases were happening that day, she had tried to put her own concerns aside while messaging Chelsea Green and Mia Yim.

“When I got released from WWE it hit like a ton of bricks. Kind of makes me want to cry now. Mainly because I wasn’t expecting it. I was actually at the gym at EOS and all day long you’re hearing about releases happening today. I’m messaging Chelsea Green and I’m messaging Mia (Yim). And for whatever reason, I just had this strange feeling, but I was putting it to the side because I just got cleared from my knee injury, right? I wasn’t really expecting it.”

Serrano recalled leaving the gym and heading straight to her car, where the shock left her shaking, crying and struggling to catch her breath. Even during that difficult moment, she felt sympathy for the person tasked with delivering the news.

“When I got the phone call, there were multiple things running through my mind. My first thought was obviously this really sucks. I am heartbroken. My body started to shake. Obviously I started crying. I went to the car immediately and I truly, truly thought I was having a panic attack because I couldn’t breathe. Every worst case scenario was going through my head and I was having a really hard time. And then secondly, I felt really bad for the gentleman who had to call me. That’s not an easy day at the office for him. I could hear it in his voice but it hurt.”

While the release was painful, Serrano now sees an opportunity to reconnect with herself. As she moves forward under her new ring name, she said her confidence is beginning to return.

“It really hurt. It’s one of those things now where as much as it hurt at that point, where I am at today, I get the opportunity of finding myself again. I lost who I was along my WWE career and now I get to find that again. And I feel like I am definitely finding it and I’m finding my confidence.”