Bianca Belair recently weighed in on the importance of representation in the industry, being a role model and more. Belair touched on the topics during an appearance on the Pivot Podcast, and you can see some highlights below (per Fightful):
On feeling the responsibility of representation in WWE: “All of it, since the very beginning, since I got to WWE. Even being here at the Performance Center, when I was in NXT, which is where you start first. I’ve always been very intentional on bringing my full self, my culture, being unapologetically me. In NXT, I was more of a heel character, and I was very cocky, I called it overly confident. My thing is, I’m not dimming my light for you. That’s your insecurity showing through. I’m gonna be me, I’m gonna be unapologetically me. I’m a Black woman as well. That’s how I’m showing up. Now I’m on the main roster. I’m more of a babyface, and I switched it over to more of the confident side.8 call myself ‘The EST’ of WWE. So I use that as motivation for everyone else to show up as the absolute best version of yourself, and just I’ve carried over being intentional about bringing my culture from being in NXT over to the main roster. So doing things like being one of the first Black women to main-event WrestleMania, going next year to WrestleMania and going to them and saying, ‘Hey, I had this idea for an entrance. I want to have the HBCU band bring me out.’ My high school band mimicked an HBCU band, so it was nostalgic for me, and explaining to them, not just any regular band, I need an HBCU band, and explaining the cultural significance of it, of people who might not know what it is but educating them and showing the WWE Universe what it is. To the next year at WrestleMania, bringing out the Divas of Compton, all little black girl dance group who look like little mini ESTs, had the long braid because I was going to these meet-and-greets, and I was seeing all these little girls come up dressed like me, and it blew me away.”
On being a role model: “I’m seeing all these little girls dressed like me, and it’s not to boost my ego. But it’s letting me know that what I’m doing is working, and I’m doing it the right way, and it [has] an impact on these little girls. I’m where I’m at right now because of the role models that I had, and I’m able to do that for them, so bringing them out there on that stage, and I’m wanting other little girls to see themselves in these little girls and seeing how they have all this confidence. That’s always been my goal, to show up as my full self and really just be representation all across the board. What I will say is, we were at a point where it was all three of us, and I just saw it becoming something so huge, where we were all champions, and I saw this, this is the first time where I feel like it’s not just one of us, it’s three of us. Now, when people think about the women’s division, they’re gonna think about three black women. The first women that they think of when they think it WWE women, it’s gonna be three black women. I just saw it being something huge and monumental, and then it all kind of went away, and I was the only one. Some people want to be the only one, but I felt like I was left by myself to do it by myself, and it’s a lot of responsibility.”
On other examples of representation now: “So now, we have Jade Cargill coming in, and you have Naomi that’s come back, and I feel like we’re back on the right track. Representation is so important. But when you only see one, it’s cool, it’s good because you see one, you’re like, oh, I know that’s possible. But when you see one, it makes it seem like it’s an anomaly, like you have to be lucky, that lucky one gets into it. I remember being a little girl, and I knew I wanted to perform, and I couldn’t sing. I tried to sing, but I knew I couldn’t be a singer. So I was like okay, maybe I can be an actress. But the one real black female actress that I always saw was Halle Berry, and I knew it was possible, but it was like, it’s only one that I really see, so it seems like you have to be that lucky one. So it’s very important that you have more than one.”
