As the first openly lesbian WWE Superstar, Sonya Deville is often asked about representation for the LGBTQ community on WWE TV.
In a new interview with Allure, Sonya talks about wanting to have more queer storylines in WWE, her real-life friendship with Mandy Rose and more.
Sonya Deville on developing a relationship with GLAAD & the importance of representation:
“I’ve been talking with GLAAD and WWE over the past two years and really have developed a great relationship between the three of us. I am a firm supporter and believer that it’s important to have that inclusion in our programming in the right, most appropriate, tasteful way.
“I realized — and I think I learned this at a young age — that anything that’s worth anything, you’re going to take a risk to get there and it’s not going to be easy. If you’re getting hate along the way I think that means that you’re doing something right and that you’re creating change.
“By doing this, yeah, I would be putting myself out there and I would be almost like the guinea pig for this kind of revolution. But I am willing to do something like that to make a social change and to really pioneer this movement in the right direction. Somebody has to do it, right?”
Sonya Deville on her friendship with Mandy Rose:
“We’ve been a part of so many firsts coming in at the time that we came. The roller coaster ride that we’ve been on together is an irreplaceable friendship.
“The girls have been nothing but supporters of me since I started. I would say I got in my own head when I first started overthinking things and thinking, ‘Are they not going to support me? Are they going to judge me? These were all insecurities that I had but I, luckily, was proven wrong and none of that was true.”
Sonya Deville on coming out: