Renee Paquette explains why she left WWE: “I don’t necessarily miss the jobs I was doing, but I miss the people a lot”

Nikki and Brie Bella welcomed Renee Paquette as their guest this week on “The Bellas Podcast.”

During the show, Nikki and Brie talked about filming Total Divas with Renee. Then, Renee talked about her decision to leave WWE, her baby gender reveal, what is next for her, getting pregnant during the pandemic, and much more.

In regards to her WWE departure, she said the following: “It’s good now. I think as soon as I came to terms, I realized it is time to go. I’ve done everything that I could possibly do here. I had a great run. It was awesome. But for the other things I wanted to do in my career, I didn’t really see it happening there. Just with everything the way it lined up with the Covid stuff happening, me getting sick, not that had to do anything with my decision, but it was just like everything was weird for a while.

Traveling back and forth, I wasn’t into. There really wasn’t much left for me to go. So it was time to go. I got pregnant the month after I left. We’ve been trying for a while. It is a weird adjustment at first because you are so used to being on the go. But, I did ease out of it because of Covid that I wasn’t on the road all the time. I was doing Backstage and flying to L.A. more than I was flying out to SmackDown. I was able to ease into it that way. The weirdest part is being out of the loop with your friends. You miss seeing everybody. You miss the bulls**t in the back. That’s what I miss. I don’t necessarily miss the jobs I was doing, but I miss the people a lot. It’s so sad. I hope we are going to stay in touch but I know when you’re not there, it is hard to maintain that. 

There are people that I’m still talking to and staying in touch with, but it’s just not the same as killing time backstage and catching up with each other in catering. Then figuring out, now what do I want to do. I left without having anything lined up or really knowing what I wanted to do. My gut told me it’s time now for you to go. Everyone was cool about it. There’s no ill will or bad feelings. I just want to go do other things. I need to spread my wings a little bit and step away from this and get out of that safety net. It’s great to be there and it’s great to have those opportunities and steady income that you know is good, but I feel like when you are not challenging yourself anymore, it’s time to step out on a limb again.”

You can listen to the entire interview by subscribing to The Bellas Podcast via your favorite podcast app on iOS and Android devices.

If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The Bellas podcast with a h/t to PWrestling.com for the transcription