In a recent virtual signing with Captain’s Corner, independent women’s wrestler Steph De Lander discussed several topics, including learning to be herself in the wrestling business.

“I just kind of had this light-bulb moment, in real life with my friends, I’m so funny and so entertaining and I’m always the one trying to make my friends laugh, and always really silly in that way, and I just say the most ridiculous, off-the-wall s*** all the time, but then in wrestling, I never ever did that and I think a big part of it was I was so concerned of being politically correct, presenting myself like a quote, unquote, superstar and whatever that means, and presenting myself a certain way for WWE, even before I got there, because that’s where I wanted to go, but then when I was on the outside, I was like, I don’t know who I am anymore.

I lost myself, and I also you know, when you have your lines written for you by a 50-year-old dude who’s American, and you’re a 25-year-old Australian girl, I don’t know how to connect with this, so when I look back and I watch a lot of the backstage stuff that I did in WWE, I’m not really happy with my delivery, because I found it hard to connect with a lot of that, so I was like okay, how do I change that, and I’m like s***, I think the answer is to just be myself, because all of my favorite people and all of the people that really connect are themselves, and it was a scary jump to make, because you are opening yourself up, and you are being vulnerable, and you are having maybe some more opinions and all that kind of stuff, so it was scary to do that, but once I did that and it started connecting, I realized oh, this is what I need to do, I need to be myself.”

The full interview is available at this link.