Renee Young finished up with WWE at SummerSlam and is now going public with the company’s reaction to her announcing she tested positive for COVID-19.
“Yeah. I generally just like to be transparent about everything. I like to just be honest. There’s no shame in having got it. Again we don’t know what’s going on with anything. We’re all trying to figure it out. So when I tweeted that I had it, I wasn’t doing it as, like, “I GOT COVID.” That was not my MO when I tweeted,” Young stated on this week’s SI Media Podcast. “It was mostly, ‘Hey, I have it.’ Also, in case there were people that could’ve been around me and maybe seen that I had it, I felt a responsibility to make sure people knew that I was sick. But, yeah, it was NOT well received.”
“They weren’t even even like ‘You shouldn’t have posted it.’ But it was like, ‘We wish you gave us a heads up.’ It was bad for PR and whatnot. But again, I wouldn’t have even thought to be like, “Hey guys, I’m gonna tweet that I have COVID, ha, ha. Like, that was just not what I was thinking about when I posted it.”
Since Young, along with producer Adam Pearce and interviewer Kayla Braxton went public they tested positive for COVID-19, WWE told talent to not share test results with the public.
When asked if she felt like WWE should have shut down, she responded with:
“Listen, anything I say on this is gonna end up seeming like controversial or like I’m shitting on it or whatever,” she said, “but, yeah, did I feel a little slighted? I didn’t really feel like anyone was all that concerned that I got sick. That bothered me for sure.
“But, you know, it’s hard to say. Again, it’s like, shit, the show goes on and now they’re working at the Amway Center and they’re essentially doing the best that they can NOW. Now doing the proper tests. I think that was something that should’ve been implemented from the beginning. Since everything that’s gone down and however many people ended up getting sick, now it feels like a much safer environment. Even when I was there for SummerSlam, I was definitely less concerned about it knowing that everyone in the building has been properly tested with the nose swab and whatnot.”
There were a lot of backstage rumblings early on with WWE’s COVID-19 testing and the way they were handling the virus. When Kevin Owens returned in early July, he threatened to go home if more was not done to prevent the spread of the virus. This is when WWE instituted a mask wearing policy.
You can listen to Young on the SI Media Podcast embedded below:
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