During a recent appearance on The Bellas Podcast, Natalya spoke about her father’s funeral being a part of Total Divas. She also recalled how unhappy WWE were with that decision.
Jim Neidhart passed away from complications related to Alzheimer’s in 2018. Because Natalya was on the Total Divas cast, the event was filmed for the show. This did not sit well with WWE higher-ups. Natalya recalled (via WrestlingInc):
“On the WWE end, they tried to sugarcoat too many things. I really wanted to be able to share what was going on with him [Neidhart], with his condition, you know, with him having Alzheimer’s and stuff. I really wanted to talk about it more because Alzheimer’s is one of, like, the five leading causes of death in the world. I remember people at WWE saying, ‘No, we don’t want anybody at your dad’s funeral. We don’t want to film it.'”
Natalya was the only cast member to appear on all nine seasons of the show, which ran from 2013 to 2019. Jim Neidhart’s funeral aired on the finale of season 8 in November 2018.
