The Inquisitr’s Carter Lee recently caught up with Lana. Here are the highlights.
Her romance with Rusev:
“He’s really upset that I don’t remember. I remember meeting him the second day at a tanning bed. He told me he was from Bulgaria, and I spent time in Bulgaria, so we immediately connected. Then on the third day, I had a promo with Dusty Rhodes—he was the artistic director of NXT, and he ran all the promo classes and character development—and I had about five different pitches. My first one, I just started speaking Russian, and then I switched to perfect English. Dusty pulled me aside afterwards and he’s like, ‘I want you to work with Rusev.’ [Laughing] I’m like, ‘Rusev? Who is that? Oh, the tanning Bulgarian!’ I’m so passionate about the business, and I’m so passionate about storytelling, and I made him come to my house every day and practice promos and vignettes. We would shoot vignettes on my phone. I was a nut. A complete nut. Within two months we were packaged together and on TV. I would say probably a month in, I sort of had a crush on him, but I wanted to really make sure I liked him. I didn’t want to just start dating someone in the business, so I just stayed friends with him. I tried not to flirt with him because if I flirt it’s a wrap and he would fall in love, because Lana is the best, Lana’s number one [laughs]. But I knew he always liked me, and we would go to church together. Spirituality is very important to me. I grew up as a Christian missionary kid, and we connected, honestly, through our faith. Our spirituality was a very big core of our relationship. He’s a very good man and has really great character. So, it was off from there.”
Total Divas Season 8:
“If you’re a wrestling fan definitely tune in because you’re going to see Paige come back, her return. You’re going to see her retire. You’re going to see what she’s going through. She really opens up, and her story is really, really powerful. I think that if you’re a Paige fan or a wrestling fan you’re going to be crying your eyes out. Even if you know nothing about wrestling, she has a powerful story and I think that people should definitely tune in. It can inspire a lot of people’s lives. You’re also going to see me take a lot of Fireball shots, per usual, on my days off, which is always entertaining to watch. It’s a little wild. I mean, someone has to bring the entertainment, and apparently, I do a lot of that, for better or for worse. But you’re also going to see how I’m so happy about wrestling. I love wrestling. There’s nothing like it in the world. I love storytelling and entertaining people, but there’s no better adrenaline rush and high that you get than wrestling and being an in-ring competitor. You’re going to see me have setbacks and disappointments, and what I do with them. That’s something I’m excited about sharing to the world because we all have setbacks. We’re all gonna have failures. We’re gonna have disappointments, and what we do with our disappointments and what we do with our setbacks are going to define our future, and it’s going to define our destiny. I think that this will hopefully inspire people and also be relatable. I’m not the strongest or the fastest or the best in-ring competitor, but no one will stop me from achieving my dreams. You’ve got to get back up.”
