Kaitlyn says she asked for her WWE release in January 2014 without telling anyone, including her close friends AJ Lee and Big E.
The former Divas Champion told Chris Van Vliet on Insight that she made the decision in Baltimore, which she said was where she had debuted, after nearly being left home from TV that week.
“Now, being in Baltimore, the day that I asked for my release, it was like this horrible travel day. I didn’t even get travel that week. Someone knew in Talent Relations, they weren’t going to bring me to TV, and I’m like, oh my God!” Kaitlyn said. “Finally got there, and I obviously wasn’t on the show, wasn’t booked. I looked around and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I debuted here, and it was this full circle moment.’ And kind of gave me this permission, because I had been thinking about it, asking for my release, because I was so unhappy.”
She said she told Mark Carano in Talent Relations, who asked her to take a night to think about it.
“So I went to Talent Relations, and Mark Carano was sitting there, and I told him. He’s like, ‘Okay, can you sleep on it?’ I was like, okay. I think SmackDown was in Philly or somewhere, and they were like, sleep on it. I think he had gone to talk to Hunter, and that was the kind of feedback. I did, and I felt horrible and awful the next day. But still, I was standing by my decision, and I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t even tell AJ, and I was really close with Big E then too.”
“I didn’t tell anybody because I didn’t want it to be a big deal. I just wanted to leave. I just wanted to be done, and that is one of the things I kind of regretted because I cared about a lot of people there, but I needed to remove myself. I just needed space.”
Her Last Match
Kaitlyn’s last match before leaving WWE was a loss to AJ Lee on the January 8, 2014, episode of Main Event, taped in Philadelphia. Tamina, who was paired with AJ at the time, superkicked her after the match.
“So they gave me one last match, it was on Main Event, and it was against AJ. I don’t even remember the match, but I was so sick to my stomach all day, and AJ of course was very upset, and she was trying to be supportive and her and Tamina were kind of paired up at that time. So we had the match and then I just took a really brutal super kick to the face from Tamina and that was it,” Kaitlyn said. “I hated it because I felt so sick, and I just wanted to leave, and I was sad.”
Kaitlyn won the Divas Championship in 2013 and lost it to AJ at Payback that June. She returned to WWE in 2018 for the Mae Young Classic, taped at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, where she beat Kavita Devi in the first round before losing to Mia Yim in the second round. She told TMZ Inside the Ring in June that she left with two years left on her contract because she was “folding under the pressure,” and that she was open to a return. In the Insight interview, she said an in-ring return is unlikely.
