Sonya Deville performs as a proud LGBTQ athlete and is now completely open about her sexuality. That wasn’t always the case.
During her time competing alongside Mandy Rose for Tough Enough, Deville had yet to come out in an open, public way.
In an interview with Allure, she recalled being asked by WWE executives whether she was in a relationship.
“[…] for any of the other contestants would have been a simple question to answer, right? So not threatening. But for me, I wasn’t openly gay at the time. I had a girlfriend, but I never verbalized being gay. It was a weird, uncomfortable, unspoken thing that my mom and dad knew but not many other people did.”
“When I came out, I was freaking out and got super awkward. I was like, ‘Yeah. I don’t have a wife yet, but I have a girlfriend,’ some cringeworthy answer. And Triple H started laughing and he was like, ‘Oh, now the whole world knows.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’”
She admitted that being honest about who she became one of the best things that happened to her, as she was “forced to tell my truth, forced to face it at that point.”
Pride Fighter
Since then, Deville has fully embraced who she is as she continues to develop in the ring, incorporating elements of herself into her “Pride Fighter” character.
“Five years ago, wearing rainbow or doing anything to scream ‘I’m gay’ would have been so uncomfortable for me,” she explained. “A year ago, I got a tattoo on my bicep — me and my mom got it. It’s an equal sign for equality. I’ve had tattoos since I was like 16, but if you would have asked the younger me to get a tattoo that symbolized my sexuality, I would have told you no, because that’s how not okay I used to be with it.”
“Now I’m so comfortable with who I am,” she continued, “and I’m really just evolving as a person every day. It’s really cool to be able to represent it with the WWE. I like to just have the little rainbow hankie in my back pocket or the shoelaces that I wear sometimes. It’s also just a subtle note to my LGBTQ community.”
Rumors recently circulated that WWE may introduce a romantic angle between Deville and her tag team partner, Mandy Rose. At the time of writing, however, there is no further indication that WWE will be exploring this potential narrative.
