Francine: Journalists Apologized Too Late After Body Shaming Me

With Shane Douglas currently on tour in Australia his long time valet / manager “The Queen of Extreme” Francine guest hosted his Triple Threat Podcast alongside Chad and JP of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling. In the episode, Francine opens up about recent tweets she made regarding past body-shaming and unkind sentiments written about her during the hey-day of ECW by the wrestling media and the very strong effect it had on her as a female striving to survive in a very tough industry in quite possibly the biggest era in the long history of the business. Francine also shares stories about how much work she put into the job she loved of entertaining the wrestling fans of ECW and relives some classic moments from her career and gives a few key details on stories we’ve heard…but never from the Queen’s perspective.

“I did a shoot interview last month or the month before that just was released and I forget how this subject came up but the subject of Meltzer came up and the way I was treated. For me, number one being a woman in the business I’m not here {to say}  like cry me a river and play me your little violin, that is not what I am trying to do here. I’m saying it was hard being a girl in an almost all guy locker room where you are trying to prove yourself and you are trying to work hard and looking a certain way, I was never required and I bought my own clothes and I basically kind of did my own thing when it came to my character and Paul never pressured me to dress a certain way or to look a certain way. Back then and I know when I started wrestling school at 20-21 years old I only weighed about 110lbs and I’m about 5’7′ so I knew I was thin. I knew I was trying to gain some weight because running the ropes would kill me and every week I’d come home with purple bruises all over my body and I was just, I was just thin with a super high metabolism. I worked out but didn’t work out to the point where I would die but I did work out to keep in shape.” 

“When you have people critiquing you for your body and not for your work that started being annoying and no matter what I did, it could have been the world’s greatest bump there was never praise for the bump it was always that she looked too thin or she looked haggard or she looked this or that and it felt like a personal attack and I kind of kept it to myself and I discussed it with Paul a couple of times but I would cry and I would cry a lot because it was a couple of them. I think it was Meltzer and I think it was maybe Mitchell was the other guy and one of them just apologized to me but whatever it is too little too late.” 

“I just feel because of the whole Peyton Royce thing now these guys are thinking about that they shouldn’t have said that and my Mom always told me if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all so maybe if you don’t like the way I look that is fine but I just feel that there is a way that a journalist can write things and not be so hateful and man he just buries. He did it with Sable and I think he did it with Chyna and he’s got a hard-on about girls in the business for some reason and I don’t get it and they did hurt my feelings. But I’ve said it in my tweets that when I came through that curtain I transformed into this character and no one could hurt me. But when I came back through the curtain there was the vulnerable side and that’s the real me and I get hurt easily and I’m human. I just felt like if they didn’t like me that was okay but every week it was just about how thin I was and he would go on record and say I was anorexic and I was starving myself. I never ever starved myself, I was never anorexic, I was never bulimic and I was on weight gainer. Ask anyone I’ve ever traveled with, I’d eat pizza and Chick-fil-A and burgers and I just could not gain an ounce of weight. I don’t like when people spread rumors vindictively about people and I don’t know what his following was but to just keep writing that she’s anorexic and she starves herself and she is this and that…I never met the guy and you don’t know a thing about me so I think you should just shut your mouth.”

“For people that were defending him saying that he cares about you. You don’t write like that if you care about a person. He is just a bully and I don’t like bullies. I’m not raising my children to be like that and if he has any children I hope that he isn’t raising them like that. He’s got his fans and I’ve got mine and I am not turning this into a pissing contest because I just wanted the girls out there to know that we all have our issues and we all go through things and his word is not gospel.”

For this and every other episode of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling and The Triple Threat Podcast featuring “The Franchise” Shane Douglas please subscribe to them on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podomatic, and Player FM. Also follow them on Twitter