Gigi Dolin Discusses Growing Up As A Romani Gypsy, Potentially Bringing Her Story To NXT

Gigi Dolin is set for the biggest match of her career at NXT Roadblock when she faces her former friend and Toxic Attraction running mate Jacy Jayne. 

On the February 28 episode of NXT, Dolin cut an emotional promo regarding Jacy turning on her and kicking her head into a door. Dolin mentioned that deep down, she’s always been happy to survive and that she shared personal details about herself with Jacy, including how her mother betrayed her. 

Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Dolin continued to open up about her childhood lifestyle. 

“Wrestling, this is taboo for how I was raised. I came up in a culture where the women didn’t have jobs. They didn’t marry or date outside of the culture. They were taken out of public school. I wasn’t really allowed to have friends or go out and hang out with people. Doing what I do is taboo in itself,” she said. 

When asked how she was raised, Dolin replied, “I am a Romani child gypsy. I grew up living an old school strict lifestyle. It’s an interesting lifestyle because I was sheltered growing up until I found wrestling, and I left home when I turned 18. I slept on couches, in cars, and I didn’t have money or have my parents in my life at that time. They were both dealing with addiction and issues like that growing up. I’ve been through the ringer. To be able to see where I came out of that is amazing. That’s why I’m so determined to give my brother this incredible life because he’s 11 years younger than me. He kind of got the trailing end of childhood without me in the picture to take him away from that. My goal in wrestling is to give him this incredible life.”

Dolin said that she wants to give her brother a good life and credited her brother, who she said is autistic, for getting her into wrestling as he latched on to an Undertaker figure. In doing research about Undertaker, Dolin discovered the world of wrestling.

When asked if she would discuss her childhood or culture on television and make it more part of her character, Gigi replied, “It’s almost a hard thing to talk about because there is so much misconstrued information and stereotypes out there. It’s a touchy subject because a lot of people are ignorant to my ethnicity and culture that it gets thrown around a lot, what people assume about it. There was a TV show on TLC ten years ago called My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. I was a part of it when I was 14, I had a birthday party, I didn’t have a wedding. They took my story, which was supposed to be a birthday, and they stretched it and made it into this really disturbing, disgusting story of ‘oh, her parents are trying to get her a husband at 14.’ That wasn’t the case whatsoever. Ever since then, I’ve been leery of how I present that because people can see that and misconstrue it or think it’s these stereotypical things they’ve seen on TV. That’s why I have to be careful when I talk about it in the public eye.”

Dolin said she started wrestling when she was 16 and her mom thought she would grow out of it. Her mom thought she would end up quitting wrestling, settling down, and get married, but Dolin stuck with it before eventually moving out when she was 18. 

Fightful will have live coverage of NXT Roadblock on Tuesday beginning at 8 p.m. ET. 

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.