Former WWE Women’s Champion, Mickie James, speaking about her upcoming CD release ‘Strangers & Angels’, comments on why she ‘started over’ as a country music singer even though she already has a successful career in wrestling:
“I don’t know. Why not? I’m always up for a challenge and I like to challenge myself. When I first debuted with WWE, I just started going back to college. The day I debuted was my first day of college. The first two and a half years, I was doing double duty then. I was going to school full-time and I was on the road full-time.
I think it’s important to challenge yourself and constantly set the bar higher. With music, it’s always been a passion of mine. It’s always been something I wanted to do. The difference between it is that you’re so vulnerable on stage because in the ring, it’s like a dance. You’re performing, you’re feeding offthe energy of the crowd, but it’s totally driven by raw passion. Whereas, this is a part of your heart and your soul and you’re very vulnerable because it’s just you and a microphone sometimes.
It’s just you up there, you’re giving it your all, and you’re giving a piece of yourself. I think it’s just a way for me to give my fans a piece of me that they wouldn’t necessarily know—a deeper side of me. What you get on the screen is this butt-kicking girl that kicks tail every Friday night, so this is a little softer side, a little different side of me.”
It’s really interesting to hear Mickie talk about studying in college at the same time as her early push in WWE. That’s definitely something I didn’t know before — well done to her. That sounds like a crazy schedule but I think it’s very responsible that Mickie worked hard to make sure she had something concrete to fall back on; we all know that the entertainment industry is very hit and miss. One day you’re a star and the next, you’re not.
Interestingly, Mickie also made a comment that relates to the recent release of Maria Kanellis — although her comments were obviously made before Kanellis’ release. In her interview on Saturday night, Maria alluded to the fact that she has many passions and didn’t want to tie herself down to simply being a WWE Diva, which WWE pretty much didn’t like. Mickie, speaking in this interview, says:
“[…] I believe you can have more than one passion in life. You can do more than one thing. The only limitations we have our within ourselves…”
It seems Mickie has the same belief as Maria — and I totally agree with them both. No one is made only to do one thing, people have many different passions and hobbies and things they want to accomplish in life. Interesting that Maria is axed for that belief and Mickie was treated like dirt on national TV.
Read the rest of the interview by clicking here.
