After a “fan” made comments about her weight and body in an online video this week, WWE star Rhea Ripley disclosed that she has been struggling with an eating disorder.
A man who calls himself a fitness expert posted a video, based on an article that doesn’t actually exist, speculating about why Rhea Ripley looks thinner now than she has in the past.
Ripley not only replied to the fake article on X, but also replied to the fitness guy in the comments of his Instagram video, which was captioned, “What happened to Rhea?”
“Just a little eating disorder that I’m actively trying to handle,” Ripley wrote.
Rhea Ripley opens up about dealing with an eating disorder
On Thursday, during an appearance on Pod Meets World to discuss WrestleMania 42, Rhea Ripley spoke out even more about her eating disorder and how she has been dealing with it.
“I find it goes through waves where it’s really difficult, and then sometimes really easy,” Ripley explained to the podcast’s hosts Danielle Fishel and Will Friedle. “This past year has been really difficult because I’ve found that if my circle at home isn’t at peace, that’s when I really struggle.
“That’s why I try to surround myself with people I know are there for me and care about me, because that’s my strong point. My husband is my strong point. My dogs are my strong point. My friend Tommy, who’s at our house every day, we work out together, it’s a positive environment.
“It’s really hard going onto Twitter. I just need to delete the app. It’s really hard going on and trying to make it a work environment, but because it is a work environment, I get all these things coming up on my ‘For You’ page as soon as I open the app. It’s just negativity toward me. I can’t even escape it. I can’t even doom scroll like a normal person without seeing things about me, about my body, my booking, me as a human. They don’t know who I am.”
Rhea Ripley explained why she is talking about it now
“It does get really tiring, but that’s also why I like to share what I’m going through,” Ripley continued. “I tried to keep the eating disorder quiet for a while because I was still figuring it out, but I try to be as vocal as possible with my struggles. If it’s going to help someone, then why not talk about it? I needed that when I was a kid. If I knew my idols were going through these struggles and still powering through, being amazing, and I look up to them, then I’d feel like I could get through it too.”
“With the eating situation, it definitely stems from stress and not being in control,” Ripley explained. “That’s my biggest thing, I like being in control. But when I can’t control work, my schedule, or at the time my home life, with a now ex-friend who was terrorizing my life, and then going to Australia and not being able to control how crowds reacted to my peers, or the pressure they were under 24/7, and then getting thrown into all that media, it was just a lot all at once. It kind of broke me for a little bit.
“It wasn’t seen by everyone yet, but now it is. And I saw so many things out there like, ‘Oh, she had to lose weight because of back pain,’ or ‘she’s off steroids.’ We get tested. I’m not on anything.”