AJ Lee has opened up about the fear she carried into her return to the ring last year, and the mental health journey she says left her ready for it. Away from the ring, Lee has long been an advocate for mental health awareness and serves as an ambassador for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Speaking on State of Mind with Maurice Benard, Lee said the idea of wrestling again and stepping back into the spotlight was something she had to weigh carefully after a decade away.
“A big fear was coming back to the spotlight and like wrestling again,” Lee said. “My last year wrestling, I think we talked about this on the last podcast, there was so much happening in my life. You have all these eyeballs on you. It’s really high-stakes and high-pressure performance. My brain was at my lowest when it seemed like I was on the top of the world, I was a champion, and all this stuff.”
Lee said the ten years she spent away from the ring, focusing on her health, are what made her feel equipped to handle the comeback.
“Taking 10 years, really taking care of myself and feeling the healthiest I’ve ever felt, then being like, ‘Okay, now go back into wrestling.’ I was really scared, like, ‘What’s that pressure going to do?'” she said. “But I felt so proud of myself for like, ‘Oh, I have the tools now.’ If I can wake up anxious, or I can be anxious behind the scenes and about to go out through the curtain. But I know how to work with it. So that was like the test was this year.”
Lee returned to WWE in September 2025 after a decade away, making her in-ring comeback alongside her husband, CM Punk, at Wrestlepalooza, where she forced Becky Lynch to submit. She last wrestled at WrestleMania 42, dropping the Women’s Intercontinental Championship to Lynch.
If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit State of Mind with Maurice Benard with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
