Sonya Deville is opening up about what happened after her home invasion in 2020. In August of that year, Phillip Thomas II broke into Deville’s Florida home and had the intentions to kidnap her. In May of this year, Thomas was finally sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of kidnapping, armed burglary, and aggravated assault.
While speaking to Maria Menounos, Deville details the aftermath of the incident and how she felt and what she went through.
“There’s just so many layers to it. First of course, it’s fight or flight, and you’re just in the situation, and you deal with the situation, and that night after the incident, I thought I was gonna go back to the house and sleep there because I was stubborn and I was in shock, and I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know left from right at that point. Then, the sun goes down, and I’m uncontrollably shaking, and I’m in a hotel room under an alias name because I’m so paranoid that even though he’s arrested, he’s somehow gonna find me, and I have the dresser pushed up against the door. I made Mandy (Rose) slide the dresser in front of the door on the fifteenth floor of this high rise, and paranoia starts to set in. It’s fight or flight, and then it’s shock, and I went into an autopilot of, ‘What needs to be done? What do we have to do?’ I don’t feel first. I do first, and then I feel later. You do what has to be done, and then you feel later, so I didn’t feel the full effect for what had happened for months. I was in full-blown fight-or-flight, I was living in fight-or-flight mode for months, maybe years,” Deville said. (Fightful)
Deville continued about how she lived in a safe house for one month afterward and how it was a “weird phase” that she went through because of the trauma.
“I didn’t realize that until, no one knows this either, I went and lived in a safe house for a month because we didn’t know if he was gonna be able to get bail. It was a 24/7 armed security house. Guys with guns standing at each door, entrance of this home, in a secured location 24/7. It’s just weird. I would go work out at the local LA Fitness and he would come work out with me. That was a weird phase of my life. I didn’t know what was going on. My mom flew down and stayed with me for as long as she could, but then she has to go back to work. My dad came down right away, of course, then he has to go back to work. It’s this really weird thing where something so messed up happens to you, but then life goes on. So that was something that was hard for me to deal with at that time because I am such a ride-or-die and I feel my emotions very hard and true, so I’m like, wait a second, I almost had all this taken away from me, and then life just goes on,” Deville said.
Deville took time off from WWE after her 2020 SummerSlam match against Mandy Rose who was with her during the invasion. She returned in January of 2021 as an authority role and would not return to the ring until October 2021. Currently she is in a tag team with Chelsea Green.
