Tessa Blanchard details past mental health struggles, Chelsea Green responds

In a new interview with Straight Talk Wrestling, Tessa Blanchard opened up about how being accused of bullying and racism by several of her colleagues has impacted her.

The backlash against Blanchard began in January 2020 when she posted a message to Twitter about female wrestlers supporting one another. Several wrestlers responded by accusing Blanchard of bullying and, in particular, calling another wrestler a slur backstage.

“Remember when you spat in a black woman’s face and called her the N-word in Japan? Was that you “supporting women“? The AUDACITY of this tweet,” wrote Allysin Kay in response to Blanchard’s post.

“You’ve consistently put down, bullied, and belittled countless female coworkers, including me. Is that support?” Chelsea Green wrote.

“As someone who experienced your bullying firsthand, received regular verbal abuse, was spat on, had rumours spread about me, dealt with multiple attempts by you to blacklist me from other companies, (plus more), I just pray you now follow your own advice,” wrote Isla Dawn.

Blanchard, who now works a full-time schedule with CMLL in Mexico, says she would not change anything about her career as it has made her the wrestler and person she is today.

“I wouldn’t change anything about the peaks, the valleys, the way my career’s been, I wouldn’t change anything because I’m very proud of the woman that I am now and the wrestler that I am today and where my career is,” Blanchard said on the show.

“If anything would have been different, I might be in a different place, I might be a different person, my ego might be through the roof, who knows?”

Blanchard said what happened in early 2020 led to struggles with her mental health.

“When everything happened to me, it was even a tough topic to even talk about. I remember I was living in Tijuana at the time and I remember some days I would wake up, I didn’t even have the strength to live that day so I would just go back to bed and I would be in my bed all day long. There were days where I was tired about life just because my identity was wrestling, I didn’t know who I was without it and in a matter of less than 24 hours, it was like from here to (nothing). From contract offers from the biggest companies, more money than I’d ever seen in my life to nothing.”

“This whole storyline we had built for eight or nine months to me begging the TNA office that day like ‘I don’t want to win it, I don’t want to do this.’ And after I didn’t go home, I went on a 27-day media tour in Mexico where I remember, we would pull over in the Uber before every interview and I would vomit.”

“My family, my little brother and sister were 14 years old at the time, were reading all these things about me that I knew wasn’t me, I knew wasn’t in my heart, I wasn’t this person, but it didn’t matter, perception is reality, the truth doesn’t matter.”

“I didn’t know my identity without wrestling and through all of that, through those ups and downs, those really hard days that I didn’t know if I was going to get through, I found out who Tessa is without wrestling.”

WWE’s Chelsea Green, who was one of the wrestlers who accused Blanchard of bullying, responded to an article from Fightful quoting her recent comments. Green wrote:

“I  don’t wish self-harm or thoughts of suicide on anyone and hope she has found peace. However, a simple ‘I am sorry’ goes a long way. We haven’t heard that yet. Accountability matters, and a redemption tour of interviews won’t erase the actions of an egotistical bully.”