Charlotte Flair recently spoke with Brian Campbell for the In This Corner podcast; you can read a few transcribed highlights (credit CBS Sports and Wrestlezone.com) and listen to the interview below:
Charlotte Flair comments on believing her own wrestling career helped save her father’s after the death of her brother Reid:
“I don’t know if me and my dad have necessarily touched on this because we talk about Reid but not a lot. But me wrestling, I think, ultimately saved my dad’s career and not only saved my life but definitely put a whole other chapter that no one saw coming because it could’ve been rock bottom after my brother passed away.
Then that’s when I decided. I showed back up a week later at FCW, which is now NXT, because Dusty Rhodes said, ‘We want you back, we need you back.’ And from that point on decided that I was going to make it in this industry. Because I worked so hard there, that gave my dad more reason to be active in the wrestling community and I think that helped him a lot with his later on career and life after just besides the ring.”
Charlotte comments on what she learned about herself and her relationship with her father after writing their book “Second Nature” together:
“In 2007 when my Dad retired, I really couldn’t understand why he was having such a hard time. I was so frustrated, and there were a lot of arguments, and I was extremely hard on him. I looked at him and said ‘Dad, no one has had a better career than you. You’ve had this amazing life. Go out on top.’ And that was retiring against Shawn Michaels, arguably one of the greatest performers of our time. So, I couldn’t grasp why, and then where I am today, and working on the book for two years and being a part of WWE, I just wish I could go back in time and acted differently and had been more supportive of my Dad, because now I can’t imagine not doing this. Nothing is like the rush of a crowd, or walking through for your entrance in ‘gorilla.’ There’s nothing like performing for the WWE audience and my Dad did that for forty years of his life and now I understand why he had such a hard time and why he wouldn’t ever want to let it go.”
