As Bodyslam.Net exclusively reported, Gisele Shaw was verbally assaulted with transphobic remarks by Rick Steiner at WresleCon on March 31st. Immediately following the incident, Gisele took a break from social media, only to return on May 15th with a Twitter post about “needing a mental health break.”
For the first time since the incident, Gisele spoke publicly about it.
In a new interview with Cultaholic, Shaw said that while the incident was unfortunate, she’s very grateful for all of the people that supported her during that time. Shaw also stated that despite the fact that the world has come so far on these types of issues, there is still so much work to do in bringing true equality to the world.
“It is very unfortunate that that incident happened, especially that they are certain people that I watched growing up and that I looked up to growing up. It’s just unfortunate that it did happen. I don’t know what the motive was, but all I can say is that I’m just so grateful for the people that supported me and have been there for me when I went through that, because that was really rough for me personally. I didn’t want to get out of bed because of what happened, there’s been so many people that have supported me and said, hey, no, you’re not sleeping, you need to get out. Things like that happen unfortunately still. We’ve come so far as a community, but I feel like there’s still so much work to do so all we got to do is keep pushing forward and make sure we support in and out of wrestling.”
H/T Skylar Russell from Fightful.
On June 16th of this year, Bron Breakker was asked about his fathers transphobic verbal assault on Gisele. You can read his comments here.
Bodyslam.Net also ran 2 exclusives about a list of other active talent and legends who were present when this onslaught on Gisele took place.
Rick Steiner was confronted about the incident by a fan at the airport a few days later; Rick had “no comment” to make.
Fan Confronts Rick Steiner At Airport About Alleged Incident With Gisele Shaw, Rick Has “No Comment”
Rick Steiner ended up being banned from WrestleCon after the remarks.
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