Paige says an autograph collector bought a ticket to get through security and wait at her connecting gate in Chicago, and she is asking people to stop approaching talent while they travel.
She went through the story with TMZ Sports outside LAX this week. Paige said she is normally relaxed about signing requests.
“I’m usually pretty chill about it, honestly. I’m like, whatever,” she said.
What bothered her was how much the man knew about her itinerary.
“This guy bought a ticket to go through to meet me at my connecting gate, so he knew my flight, he knew where I was connecting through, and he knew what time I was landing, which is so f***ing weird. It’s too far.”
She said he was waiting when she got off the plane.
“So he’s waiting outside for me, and he has like 30 pictures, and I’m like, ‘Bro, this is really strange.’ And he was like, ‘I know, it’s weird.'”
Paige said she does not blame the airline itself. Her own read was that the information came from a person rather than a company, and she stopped short of saying she knew that for a fact. She said she thinks it may be someone working for the airline or someone working in the airport telling collectors where wrestlers are. She did not name an airline, an airport employee or the man at the gate.
She drew a line between meeting fans at wrestling events and being approached in transit.
“We have meet and greets, we tell you where we’re gonna be at the arenas,” she said. “Come to the arena, come to a meet and greet, but don’t turn up at my hotel, don’t turn up at my connecting gate, and even so, don’t turn up at the airport, because a lot of wrestlers hate that.”
The TMZ interview followed a post she made on X about a week earlier, where she used the term airport scalpers and said the same thing in shorter form. In replies to that post, she made the detail that matters clearest. Because it was a connecting flight, she was never going to reach baggage claim or any other public part of the airport, so the only way to reach her was to be past security. She said she believes the man expected to resell the signed photos and make the ticket price back.
No complaint or charge has been reported in connection with the incident, and Paige has not said she reported it.
Wrestlers have been raising this for a while. The complaint is usually the same one Paige made, that the people waiting at hotels and airports are collectors working for resale rather than fans, and that the volume of items is the tell. Thirty photographs is not a fan asking for a signature. WWE runs official signings and meet-and-greets at events, which is the alternative Paige pointed people toward.
Paige returned to WWE at WrestleMania 42 on April 18 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, stepping into a fatal four-way for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship in place of the injured Nikki Bella. She pinned Alexa Bliss to win the titles alongside Brie Bella, in a match that also included Bayley and Lyra Valkyria, Nia Jax and Lash Legend, and Charlotte Flair and Bliss. They’ve since lost the titles.
It was her first WWE match since a neck injury suffered on a house show in December 2017 ended her in-ring run with the company. Between 2022 and 2025 she worked for AEW under her real name, Saraya, and won the AEW Women’s World Championship at All In London in 2023.
She is back on a full WWE schedule now, which is the part that makes the airport question a recurring one for her rather than a one-off.
