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#Post#: 15868--------------------------------------------------
Marias new Blog!
By: ChrissiCalvert Date: August 7, 2013, 1:13 pm
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What’s up all you Stars and Studs!!
First off, I would like to say thank you to Diva Dirt for giving
me the opportunity to be a part of this amazing website. I have
loved the website since the day it opened and it has on many
occasions introduced me to new women wrestlers from around the
world. Yes, I am a women’s wrestling fan. I have been for a long
time and yes, I take a huge interest in the women’s wrestling
shows even though I am not the best women’s wrestler. That title
goes to Victoria, Mickie, Sara Del Rey, MsChif, Kong, or
Cheerleader Melissa active currently. And yes, that is my
opinion. Secondly, there are so many things I could talk about…
The Bellas, Ring of Honor, Pay the Fan, my relationship with
Michael Bennett, my “big projects”, Total Divas, wrestling
bullies, Raw, SmackDown, TNA, or just my thoughts on the current
state of women’s wrestling. We will have plenty of time for all
of it but first I want to give you my story.
My name is Mary Louis Kanellis and I am 31. I am from a small
town outside of Chicago called Ottawa, Illinois. I have one
beautiful intelligent sister, Janny, and one father of two and
veteran brother, Bill. One funny story about my brother and me —
we used to wrestle all the time and I broke his nose. Oops. I
blame sibling rivalry and WWE. We used to watch it as a family
when we were little. My parents are blue collar. My dad is a
recently retired prison guard and my mother is a nurse’s aide at
a nursing home. I grew up middle class and I began working at
the age of 12. I was a bus girl, then ice cream maker, Jimmy
John employee and dance teacher. For as long as I can remember I
have wanted to be an entertainer. I started dance lessons at the
age of three. I used to, as a little girl, host television shows
in my bathroom mirror. I started modeling at the age of 14 and I
never looked back. As a model I felt I could get out of my small
town and away from the teasing/bullying I experienced in school
and in dance I could express myself with movement. I have always
been different. I dressed different, I got my boobs at 12 before
any other girl did, I liked fashion, and I was a creative
person. In school I always got As in Art classes and I struggled
in Mathematics. I remember when I was still in grade school
girls used to make fun of my long hair and one time shut my hair
in the bathroom door. Their laughter and the fact that I never
fit in made me want a career in entertainment more than anything
else. I only felt less lonely when I would look at the girls in
magazines with their crazy clothes, confident looks, fearless
makeup, and chicken legs. (Yes, I had skinny chicken legs all
through school.) I was a victim of bullying and that continued
into high school. When I went to high school I thought that I
would find a place to fit in but it only got worse. In my
freshmen year, my choir teacher, Mr. Amm, was the only person
thus far in my life that made me feel that being weird was
perfect. But my school counselor told me I could not fit
everything into my schedule if I took choir the next year so I
was alone again. Girls used to put negative and hurtful things
on my locker. They would put pictures of me with a circle around
my face calling me a slut or they would draw a mustache on a
picture from the Seventeen magazine I was in and tape it to my
locker.
I tried out for the dance team in high school, the Ottawa
Pomerettes, but I didn’t have a white collar name in my small
town so even though all the senior girls told me I had great
tryout and should have made it, the coach would not put me on
the team. My junior year when I was dating one of the varsity
football team captains, I made the dance team. It was obvious
why I made the team that particular year. Football was religion
in my town. So, even though it was not my intention that was my
first education about politics. I loved the dance team and
performing at football and basketball games. But the coach was
mean spirited and made fun of my long hair and told me I should
cut it. No matter how hard I worked that coach did not like me.
So, at practices I was put on display for what not to do or who
not to be.
The dance studio was a different story. Jeanne Marie’s School of
Dance is where I learned to perform and not be afraid to stand
out. I felt at home on the wood floors of the dance studio above
my old gym and alive in front of a crowd. We had recitals,
competed in competitions, and performed at the yearly Riverfest
in front of the entire town of Ottawa. Jeanne Armstrong, one of
my dance teachers, had a way of pushing the best performance out
of you. It didn’t matter how sick, tired, hurt, or depressed you
were, YOU DANCED. I loved the crazy and sometimes (who am I
kidding, most times) ugly costumes we wore and I loved
forgetting the pain from the bullying I experienced during the
day in high school. Jeanne, Rhonda, and Leigh Ann will forever
be role models to me. I often think about what might have
happened if my mom and I would have bought the studio after
Jeanne sold it. It would have been a completely different life.
By the time I left the studio it had a new owner. I was 21 and
teaching 10 dance classes a week. It feels like a lifetime ago.
My eyes were focused on Los Angeles and the entertainment
business. It was time to go… Or I thought it was.
Somehow I ended up in Covington, Kentucky. I ending up engaged
to my high school sweetheart that I didn’t love, but he loved me
and wrestling. My ex and I used to watched wrestling all the
time. I loved the women and looked at them as role models to get
out of my bad situation. The Divas kept me going when I was
depressed. So, I taught at a dance studio, went to the
University of Cincinnati, and worked at a Sears all while trying
to get modeling jobs in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was a hard time. My
fiancé was a drug addict and I was trying to get as far as
possible from him and Ottawa as I could. I finally did when I
got offered a modeling job in Miami, Florida. I was so excited!!
The agency was going to put me up in a model studio and I was
going to work in Miami. It sounded perfect. So, I packed
everything I could in my Neon, broke up with my drug addict
fiancé, and drove to Miami. As soon as I got there I knew
something was wrong. There was no model studio and I was
supposed to live with the owner of the agency. I had saved up a
little bit of money so I got an efficiency in the same building
still hoping I would be represented by the agent so I could make
some money. It was scary and a big joke at the same time. I was
so naive I did get a few jobs while I was in Miami but even with
my very best attempts I couldn’t make enough money to stay.
During the last job I did for the agency, while I was changing
in the bathroom the agent walked in on me and tried to feel me
up. He got kicked pretty hard in his (I’m assuming tiny)
privates and I ran away. I ended up sleeping in my car and
calling my mommy on a pay phone to ask her to send me money. I
was 22, scared and alone. I had to go back to Ottawa, Illinois.
Los Angeles was getting further away. My dream was slipping
away.
On the way back to Ottawa I stopped in Knoxville, Tennessee for
a Hawaiian Tropic bikini contest. I had been a Hawaiian Tropic
bikini model since I was 17. My mom used to go with me to the
bars the contests were being held at so I could enter even
though I was under age. My mom has always been my biggest
supporter and one of my best friends. With Hawaiian Tropics I
got a taste of traveling. I went to Hawaii on my very first
flight for Hawaiian Tropics. Bikini modeling was a better fit
for me. I tried runway modeling and they told me I was too short
and too fat. I visited so many agencies in Chicago and always
got the same response: Too short. Too fat. Too short. Too fat.
So, there I was in Knoxville running back home after a failed
attempt in Miami, trying to make some money by winning a
contest. That night they were casting at the bikini contest for
girls to star in a new reality show. I didn’t know the name or
what the show was about. All I heard was Los Angeles and I
wanted to try out. I did the casting that night hoping something
would come out of it. By the way, I didn’t even place in the
bikini contest that night. Haha… I just drove to Ottawa after
the contest with the little bit of money I had left.
Back in Ottawa I got a job at a timeshare company and lived
miserably from day to day. Going to Hawaiian Tropics contests
when I could was the only thing I looked forward to. I won Miss
Chicago, Illinois that year and went to Hawaii for the National
Competition. I didn’t place in the Nationals but I loved the way
it felt to model for pictures on the beach. Sunrise in the
background and sand under my feet. I felt free. Free from
everyone’s labels. Free from my past.
Then I got the phone call that changed everything. It was the
reality show: Outback Jack, although it wasn’t called that at
the time. They wanted me to come to LOS ANGELES for a callback.
I went to LA and I was hooked. I remember the way the smog
smelled when I got off the plane, the beautiful people, and the
billboards on Sunset Boulevard like it was yesterday, but it was
almost 10 years ago. I got cast on the show. I went to Australia
in May of 2004 to shoot the show and fell in “love” with some
Australian dude I barely knew. I was still young and stupid. But
Australia was beautiful and so was he at the time. Jack told me
he loved me the night I got eliminated from the the show and it
wasn’t his choice to eliminate me but the producers. More
politicking. Marissa made it to the final two instead because
she was the typical bad girl and she made for better TV than me.
In the end, Jack picked Natalie and they lived happily ever
after in Louisville, Kentucky. They are happy, married, and have
three daughters. Congrats to them! People always say, “Thank God
for unanswered prayers”, and I do everyday. Jack was not my
“one”. He was a fling on spring break news.
In May 2004, after I got home from Australia, I entered into the
Diva Search online. See, even though the drug addict fiancee was
gone I still watched wrestling. So I entered online and in June
I got a call from Howard Finkel and as you know, the rest is
history…
We can pick up the story next time but I wanted to share my
history before WWE because I was a fan and still am. I am a real
person with real problems and feelings. I have dealt with
terrible things like bullying, an attempted rape, abuse,
homelessness and fear all before WWE. All entertainers have
dealt with reality. We do not always have the glamorous lives
that you might think we do. But, through it all, I have been
able to build a wrestling family that I am proud of. I am
enjoying my life so much more now than I ever have. Maybe it is
age or maybe it is experience but I am happy to be a part of a
company that builds stars instead of tearing them apart. Ring of
Honor.
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