WWE veteran Natalya Neidhart is speaking out on the importance of breaking the silence around mental health in wrestling, inspired by recent emotional revelations from Randy Orton and Charlotte Flair. Appearing on Busted Open After Dark, Neidhart expressed admiration for her peers who have opened up about personal battles and explained how their stories reflect a deeper issue within the industry, one she has lived through herself.

Randy Orton’s Relatable Struggle
Nattie was captivated by Randy Orton’s recent interview with Stephanie McMahon, where he discussed his battles with anxiety and depression. “You look at Randy Orton, he’s just so physically imposing… he looks like a Greek god,” she began. “And then you hear him talking about depression, and you hear him talking about anxiety, and he’s saying, like, ‘I’m waking up in the middle of the night and I can’t sleep’… it just like, hit me like a ton of bricks.”

“We need to have those conversations,” Nattie continued. “More people need to be having those conversations about mental health. Because if somebody like Randy Orton can open up about that and show like, ‘Hey, it’s okay to feel that way’… if he’s going through it, it makes people feel good talking about it.”

Charlotte Flair’s Vulnerability and Other Stars
She also praised Charlotte Flair’s recent essay in The Players’ Tribune, where Flair opened up about her own personal traumas. “I loved her article because it was very vulnerable,” Nattie said. “Again, people see us, and we look larger than life, and then you see somebody open up and say, ‘When the crowd was booing… I felt like they were booing me as a human’… and like, it’s hard because it’s hard. It’s a lot of noise.”

Nattie noted that this struggle is not uncommon among top stars, citing stories she heard about the late Eddie Guerrero. “[He] was the champion, and he still didn’t feel like he was good enough,” she said. “He would beat himself up because he’s like, ‘I’m the champion, and we should have had a sold out house.’” She also brought up former WWE Champion Big E, referencing his own Players’ Tribune article. “When you look at Big E, you’d never think he was somebody that wanted to commit suicide,” she said, highlighting how his openness about his struggles was so relatable and important.

Her Own “Black Cloud of Fear”
The conversation led Nattie to discuss her own career anxieties, which she referred to as the “black cloud of fear” of getting backstage heat. She confessed that her father, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, had a volatile career in WWE, and it made her determined to be the opposite. “I had this goal when I got finally got hired by WWE, that I was going to be the complete opposite of my dad,” she revealed. “Whatever Vince wanted me to do, I would do it… if they wanted me to lose in three seconds, I would do it. If they wanted me to pass gas, I would do it.”

However, Nattie feels the environment in WWE has changed, allowing for more honesty and authenticity. After getting positive feedback from Triple H after her recent Bloodsport match, she realized, “You do not have to be afraid anymore.” She believes the fear of getting heat is “stopping so many people from doing more,” and used a powerful example to make her point. “If Steve Austin was afraid of getting heat,” she said, “we may have never seen Steve Austin.”