In an exclusive for WrestlingNews.co, Steve Fall interviewed former WWE star Candice Michelle. You can read some of the transcribed highlights below. Scroll down to the bottom of this page for the full interview.
Candice Michelle on wanting to use her magic wand the way Triple H used his sledgehammer:
“I was traveling and we would go to stripper stores. At the stripper stores, we would find our gear. It’s just what we did back in the day. So we’re in there, and it’s like Halloween, and there’s this star wand for a costume. I look at Torri Wilson and Victoria and I’m like, ‘I’m going to use this and this is going to be my new gimmick’, and they’re like, ‘Whatever’ or like, ‘Get your costume’, you know, totally don’t care.”
“So we get to RAW that day and we’re having a match. It was a tag team match and Fit Finlay is in the ring. I take my flimsy star wand down to the ring and I look at Fit and he’s kind of like, what is this girl doing? I’m like, ‘I want to use my star wand like Triple H uses his sledge hammer’, and he was just speechless, like, what does this girl think she’s gonna do? That belief just came to become and I used that. Okay, maybe it’s not as cool as a sledge hammer, but they turned that wand into a steel wand that really looked like a weapon and that steel wand like totally got over and I was like that was just such a cool story of like, you know, seeing somebody you admire doing something and then just coming up with your own idea and it getting over.”
Candice Michelle talks about the WWE Divas Butterfly championship and if the wrestlers liked the design:
“You know, it worked. I think there’s something so special to me about the Women’s Championship. It’s just really, especially nowadays with everything going on, I mean, let’s be honest. I don’t really care what you got going on in your life, you know, your race, sex, gender, all that stuff, but at the end of the day, the women were paving a way for women, you know, and that was our thing back then. So to be the Women’s Champion, it was a huge, huge ordeal. The butterfly belt just kind of seemed, you know, I’m not gonna say less than because when anybody wins a belt, it’s an incredible experience and that means that they’ve worked super hard to earn that. So if I were to earn that, I would have thought it was a huge thing for me as well. But just having the titles that I earn, they were just a reflection of who I was, you know, a Women’s Champion, a 24/7 Champion, it’s just who I am in my life and so they have more meaning to me than say a butterfly belt, but I think to other people who one it, it would have that kind of meaning to them as well.”
Candice Michelle talks Melina still having heat over WWE issues a decade ago:
“I think this was our interview last time. We talked about the heat I had with Melina back in the day right. Your interview got a lot of attention, and I did an appearance with her and things have been great until I walked into this appearance and she was like, really upset with me. She’s like, ‘I hear you telling people that I’m hard to work with.’ I was like, ‘Where is this coming from? Like, this happened years ago, like, we are cool with each other. Right?’ She was just really hot with me and she’s like blaming it. I looked at her and I said, ‘You were hard to work with. Do you remember?’ We were not friends. We made it work because we weren’t friends, you know, and so that was just coming up just recently because your podcast got a lot of attention around then. People thought, ‘Oh, they’re fighting now.’ I’m like, ‘No, actually, we’re not fighting now’, but you know, the way people kind of construe these words of where it is, and then, you know, just really touching on what happened back then and where we are now.”
“That’s kind of been a cool transition for a lot of wrestlers in my realm right now, like, you know, I got to go on vacation and hang out with Mickey James and her family. I got to go to ODB’s wedding. I’m going to be seeing Victoria this weekend at a show and doing another one coming up for abused women with Torri Wilson. It’s like, our lives of who we are now, it’s really rewarding because it’s lasted for decades. We’re almost coming on to 15 or 16 years of friendship and seeing people get married and stuff. So now people are like, ‘Who do you hang out with? Who do you know? Who are you friends with?’ So that’s just always been a question lately.
“You know what it was? One fan came up to her and changed the words, the telephone game, right? So she heard that, but just took it to heart and like, lashed out at me. I was like, ‘Whoa, like, are you okay? Like, what’s going on?’ Then we have to go right into a live Q&A for all the fans and so we have this heat between us. I’m like, okay, let’s go. I felt like I was back in my wrestling days. Like, I’m not sure what’s happening, but we’re going to this Q&A and they’re going to ask some questions and I’m gonna be honest. Afterwards, we went out. We had some dinner together and she was like, I’m sorry. I think I overreacted.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’”
Candice Michelle explains why Vince McMahon grabbed her breasts during a WWE backstage segment:
“You know, I don’t think that stuff is really pitched. It’s just kind of like, you’re going to have a segment with Vince McMahon and here is what you should say. It’s not like grabbing my breasts, it’s more of a pitch like you’re an actress in a scene. You go in as this character and you come out that character.”
Candice Michelle on being in Playboy:
“This was actually their (WWE) idea. They had a contract for a while with Playboy. That’s why every year there was somebody in Playboy. So this came from them, but they chose with Playboy who would be offered that contract on the roster.”
“For me, this was a dream come true because when I moved to LA, I had done some special editions, Playboy, which is like, they would call it College Girls or Wet and Wild. It’s Playboy, but it’s not the main magazine, so it doesn’t get the notoriety or the attention of it, but it was something I always wanted to do. I’ll never forget, I was doing one of those shoots. I was doing the Playboy catalog. They hired me to be the catalog model and I was on the cover of that, but once again, it’s nothing like, only people that are really into Playboy things would have seen that.”
“So the makeup artist was talking to me, and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s my dream to be a Playmate.’ She looked at me and she said, ‘Oh well, you’ll never be a Playmate.’ I was like, ‘Why?’ She goes, ‘Well, once you do their special editions, they won’t put you in the main magazine’ and it crushed my heart. I was like, it was just a dream for me. Like some women dream of that. Some people don’t. For me back then, moving to L.A. was one of those things I wanted to do. So to have that come full circle and to be on the cover, so when you’re on the cover, you get paid about 10 times more than a Playmate. So you’re the celebrity on the cover and so for that to happen, I was like, don’t believe anybody when they say you can’t do something, or that’s the way it used to be, because you can still do it. You know, it’s up to you to do it.”
This interview is exclusive to WrestlingNews.co. If you use these quotes, please include a link back to this page.
