Days shy of her 40th birthday, former WWE Diva Ashley Massaro took her own life. Massaro’s passing was one of the more tragic stories in recent wrestling history.
Many of you may recall that Ashley Massaro was involved with WWE as a performer between 2005 and 2008, during which she worked alongside (and was personally involved with) former Tag Team Champion Paul London during his run with Brian Kendrick.
During a recent appearance on the “Cafe de Renee” podcast, London talked about Massaro’s untimely death.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On finding about Massaro’s passing: “It took me by surprise, too. I had received a message from a friend of mine in England who just said, ‘I’m so sorry about Ashley.’ I said, ‘What?’ I don’t know what’s going on. That’s how I found out. [It was] very upsetting and a very sad ending for her because, at her core, [she was] genuinely a very friendly, bright, and sweet person who everyone, for the most part, got along with in the locker room.”
On troubling interactions between Massaro and Vince: “I do remember, specifically, many times when she would be crying to me because Vince was propositioning her to fly on the jet with them. Kevin Dunn, Bucktooth Bucky, would be telling her that she has to fly on the jet with them…Every now and then, they’d always put the Divas up at, like, the TV hotel or whatever, he’d be knocking on her door and trying to get her to answer.”
Massaro was involved in a concussion lawsuit against WWE in 2016. While she never made allegations against McMahon while she was alive, she did swear in an affidavit that she was raped by a member of the US military while on a tour abroad with WWE in 2006. Massaro contended that Vince advised her “it was not in the best interest of the WWE for [Massaro] to make the information about [her] attack public.” The lawsuit was later dismissed and the Supreme Court declined to take up its appeal. WWE denied that company management had any knowledge of Massaro’s assault, nor that they advised her to keep it quiet. After the affidavit was released publicly following Massaro’s death, WWE also claimed that Massaro apologized to the company in writing. The apology has not been made public.
London’s statements come when all eyes are on the now-former WWE Chairman. Several bombshell reports from the Wall Street Journal in recent weeks cast a less than flattering light on the company and Vince McMahon himself, before today’s news that Vince has officially retired from his positions within WWE. The WSJ stories include findings of hush money payments made to four different women over the span of twelve years to cover sexual misconduct allegations, along with the signing of NDAs, against McMahon. When pressed, London had very little issue believing that McMahon was capable of such activities:
“I’m shocked this Vince stuff is just now coming out. I haven’t looked up on a lot of it…but I’m surprised it hasn’t come out in the last ten years. But that just goes to show how afraid people are of the power dynamic, where they’re so fearful of losing their job. What does that say about you, if you’re protecting this 90-year-old f***ing corpse with a thong tan line, just because he’s a billionaire?”
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