Lilian Garcia is celebrating a milestone anniversary in her professional career.
August 23, 2024 will mark 25 years since Garcia made her debut in WWE. The long-time ring announcer recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard about what she’s been up to since leaving WWE, her anniversary countdown, and some of her favorite memories along the way.
Garcia went through a period of loss in 2021, as her mother passed away and she got a divorce. She needed to process that grief and put several things on hold, including her popular Chasing Glory podcast. Garcia found religion and a new career path through motivational speaking, and loves being able to continue to travel and inspire those who need some direction.
“I started singing on the worship team, which was great, and it filled me. And I got rebaptized last year, in 2023. Then, that led me to going to my parents house in South Carolina, leaving California,” she explained. “I went there and handled their house for eight months. My sister would come every now and then from Nashville. Sot that emptied out, put it up on the market, and then that led me to Georgia, which is where I’m at now.
“I’ve been here working with [Next Level Speakers Academy], and I’m doing more speaking, which is great,” she continued. “I got a taste of it at WWE. We’d go to schools and we’d go to charity events or prisons. I got to speak to a lot of those people and just pour the knowledge and inspiration that I knew that is just so in me. I love inspiring people. And so now I am working on doing that full-time between that and singing. So I have also recorded new music, so that will come out soon. I’m excited.”
Lilian Garcia on how WWE helped with her new career path
Garcia said all of the stories she has from WWE really helped her in public speaking because she can turn them into teachable moments. She cited one from a Tribute To The Troops trip about how overthinking a moment can affect you, explaining she loves teaching people about building the confidence to handle these situations.
“Right before we do the show, we’re there for like five days. So we’re going from base to base to base as we’re separated, we’re going in Black Hawk helicopters,” Garcia explained. “My group got out of the helicopter and then all of a sudden, we hear the sirens. Then we hear a soldier yell out like, ‘Helmets on, run to the shelter!’ And we’re like, ‘Wait, what?’ The soldier pulled me into the shelter and a bomb came in, and luckily it was a small bomb, but still, we were rattled. I was definitely rattled. And so I talk about overthinking, in your life how you can be overthinking. And in that moment, I was definitely overthinking. Like, ‘Wait, should I be here? Did I sign up for the right thing?’ I really was in my head.
Arena-level confidence
“Then they took us to the autograph signing, which I couldn’t even believe that we still did an autograph signing after that. Right at the beginning of the autograph signing, one of the soldiers, he hands me a piece of the bomb like it was a gift. I’m looking at this and I’m like, ‘Whoa,’ then I got perspective,” she noted. “It ended up being a gift because I remembered how the soldiers handled that situation. They didn’t overthink, they just stepped into action. They stepped into the mission.
“And that’s what I love teaching people from these stories about how stop overthinking, right? Step into the mission. Bombs go off in our lives all the time. They’re not the physical bomb,” she continued, “but in our finances and our health and our family woes and our marriages. How do we handle it? Do we overthink these things, or do we step into the mission of what is it that we can do next? Things like that is what I love. WWE gave me the platform to have that confidence to grow into it. And that’s what I love to teach people is arena-level confidence.”
Lilian Garcia on her WWE RAW cameo
Lilian Garcia stepped away from her full-time role in WWE in 2016. She has made sporadic appearances since then, including a one-night on May 13, 2024, where she co-announced a match with Samantha Irvin.
Garcia explained how it came together, and how she saw it as a ‘passing the torch’ moment.
“I hadn’t been back in a while, I think it was five years [since her last appearance at RAW Reunion in 2019]. So I was in South Carolina at my parents’ house handling all of that. Then I heard that they were in Greenville, so I just wanted to come by and say hi because I missed everybody,” Garcia explained. “I just wanted to touch base with everyone again. So I reached out to them saying, ‘Hey, can I come by and say hello?’ They’re like, ‘Oh my God, can you come by? Absolutely.’
Lilian Garcia on Samantha Irvin
Garcia said it was actually Triple H who pitched her appearance with Irvin, calling it a spontaneous and moving moment.
“I don’t know what came over me when I was in the ring, then I put her over in the ring. That wasn’t planned, but I love just speaking from the heart,” Garcia added. “I genuinely thought she was doing a great job, so I wanted to say it in front of everyone. Then people were like, ‘Oh my gosh, it was like passing of the torch.’ I was like, wow. I never even looked at it that way, but I guess when I look back, I’m like, oh yeah, it did seem like that.
“What a cool place for me to be in to think about that, me passing the torch to someone. Sometimes I have to pinch myself,” she continued. “I have to pinch myself for the career that I was able to have there. And a lot of it was A, the company right, keeping me there. And then B, the fans keeping me there and embracing me that the way they did, and just seeing that I genuinely loved being there. I was a fan first. I used to watch it with my dad, so coming to work was so exciting and it was always different. That’s what I love, I love spontaneity.”
Watch our full interview with Lilian Garcia below:
