Bianca Belair’s journey to becoming the EST of WWE wasn’t an easy one as she struggled with her mental health and eating disorders.
Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair has been an athlete for most of her life, and after successfully defending her championship at SummerSlam against Becky Lynch, her dominance in WWE doesn’t show any signs of slowing.
However, despite being a gifted athlete with incredible physical strength, Belair admits that she struggled severely with mental health in the past and also secretly had an eating disorder beginning when she was in high school. Speaking to Ariel Helwani for BT Sport ahead of Clash at the Castle, the EST of WWE bravely opened up about her past struggles when it came to food.
“My freshman year, I just struggled so much mentally. I was struggling with an eating disorder secretly in high school, so when I got to college I told myself ‘okay I’m not going to do this anymore. I’m gonna be healthy.’ I just had a very unhealthy relationship with food.”
Continuing, Bianca Belair revealed that her mental health was so low at one point that she needed to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital on the orders of her coach Vince Anderson. She also thanked her coach for taking her mental health seriously and not allowing her to compete until she improved.
“I was put into a psychiatric hospital. It got that low… That’s when everyone found out. He [Anderson] was the one, once I got out, who said ‘you can’t come back.’ He made me go see a psychiatrist. He was like ‘you have to get yourself together mentally because that’s what is more important.
“He was the first person really that put my mental health above anything else. My parents, I was able to finally open up to my parents and be vulnerable to them and that was the one big major step to my recovery with everything. So, I could have stayed at Texas A & M but I decided that I needed to go home and rely on my family and really just start over.”
Bianca Belair has opened up in the past about why she considers US Olympic gymnast Simone Biles to be an inspiration when it comes to taking care of her mental health.
At Clash at the Castle, Bianca Belair will team up with Asuka and Alexa Bliss to take on the team of Bayley, Dakota Kai, and IYO SKY in a six-woman tag team match.
h/t Diva Dirt
If you or someone you love is struggling with a mental health crisis or eating disorder, help is available through NAMI in the United States or Mental Health UK in the United Kingdom.