Natalya On Her New Character, Owen Hart, Montreal Screwjob, Tyson Kidd Accident, Vince McMahon
Natalya (@NatByNature) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. She sit down with Chris Van Vliet in Tampa, FL to discuss her new autobiography "Last Hart Beating" and why now was the right time to release the book, the most difficult chapters to write about, why her path to WWE was not as easy as some may have expected, her new character outside of WWE that has competed at Bloodsport, GCW and the NWA, slapping Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 26, how she found out that Owen Hart had passed away at Over The Edge 1999, when her husband Tyson Kidd (TJ Wilson) broke his neck in the ring, being a Guinness World Record holder and more!
Buy Nattie's book "Last Hart Beating" here: https://a.co/d/aH2e47n
On why now is the time to release her book:
"So many different reasons. I had been thinking about writing a book for a long time, and so when my contract was coming up last year in like June of 2024, one of the things that I really wanted was I got some new goals, and one of them was I want to do a book. So that was one of the things I brought to WWE that I was like, listen, there's a bunch of stuff that I want to do, and I really, really want to write a book, and I really need the company, I need you guys to give me your blessing on it if we're going to move forward and I'm going to continue to work here because I love working for WWE. It's a huge part of my life. It's a huge part of who I am. I'm closing in on almost two decades uninterrupted with WWE. WWE is a big part of my life. They're my family, but I also have new goals and I have new dreams, and I'm just that type of person that throughout my whole life, I always like to set new goals, and if I don't have goals or dreams or something to look forward to or work towards, I feel like I'm stagnant. When I was in school, I had to have things that I just love working towards new stuff. So the book was like listen, this is gonna be part of a new chapter. I'm starting this new deal with WWE, and I want to be able to write the book. WWE was super supportive about the book. They gave me their blessing and then some, and I needed that, because it's not like I'm writing the book as a WWE book. This is my book, and they're giving me their blessing, and so getting their support, having them have my back on it. I wanted to have new goals. So from the cover, I was like, hey, I want to have the Women's Championship on it, and the Divas Championship. The second I asked WWE, they were like, Yep, no problem. I was like, Oh, my God, they're letting me. Because, you know, that's their titles, I have to get permission to do that. Even though it's not a WWE book, I have to still get permission to get all that stuff. They gave me 16 photos to use that have never been used or never been seen before by people. So they've just been so supportive. But I finally felt ready to tell my story. And the great thing is that when you read the book, you'll realize that there's still so much room for so much more story, which I love. But I also felt like, I said this to my husband, I said this to TJ. I go, people don't really know me. I've done a lot of interviews over the years. I've done a lot of media. I did Total Divas. I've been essentially in WWE for, you know, January will be 19 years that I've been under contract, and I just don't feel like people know me. I’ve never been fully able to tell my story. It's not like, oh, WWE wouldn't let me. It was just that I never had the courage to fully tell my story."
On WWE not being an easy path:
"It was hard, and now that I'm this deep into my career, I'm so happy that it was hard, because I grew so much from it being hard. I think it's important to go through hard things. If life was easy, we wouldn't grow, we wouldn't learn. For me, I built so much character in the struggle. Looking back on it now, the best, most fun times were figuring it out, I just have to figure it out. I think that's the thing with me is that it's always been a challenge. Because on the outside you go, 'Well, she's part of the Hart family, that's got to be a door open for her, that kind of gets her foot in the door. She's got a bit of a name.' But when I was trying to get into WWE, Bret still had conflict with Vince. Bret got into the Hall of Fame in 2006, I was starting to wrestle in 2000. 2001 I was starting to have my first series of matches, but I was green, green, green, green. But Bret and Vince still had lots of conflict, so that conflict wasn't really worked out for a long time. It was still very intense. So for me, I think it was hard because, yes, I have this name of being part of the Hart family, but there was tension, there was conflict that they have with Owen's wife, Martha. After Owen passed away, so tragically, the company had conflict there. They had conflict with Bret. And of course, my dad had worked in and out of WWE for many decades, but my dad had lost his job quite a bit. He was fired from WWE, I think five times. So there was just a lot of baggage with the Hart family. I think that there was times, nobody told me this, but I could just assume this, that there were times that they were like, stay away from the Harts a little bit, we got the stuff with Bret going on. It was complicated. But families can be complicated. So it was just challenging for me to get hired. I kept sending in tapes. I kept trying. I would never, ever, ever ask Bret to do anything. And also, Bret's not going to call anyone up, because he's not on speaking terms with the company back then. So it was just me sending in tapes to Dr Tom Pritchard, that was the only person that I knew of through a friend to send tapes to, and he was just the coach at developmental. I mean, he wasn't just a coach, but he wasn't like a head honcho. It wasn’t like my dad was making phone calls to Vince McMahon, and I was getting in, it was just so hard because the family, like I couldn't. My dad was struggling with a lot of personal stuff at that time, and he wasn't well, but I love that it was hard for me to get hired. I love that so much, because it makes for a great story."
On her new character outside of WWE:
"It's been the most liberating feeling working on that character, and it all just happened so organically, it really stemmed from the book. After I finished writing the book, I was like, Oh my God, I know what I need to do now. I had signed this new contract with WWE, and I think with Triple H, I think he really wanted to find the right thing. I think he didn't want to just throw me in stuff that didn't matter. I think he really wanted to find the right thing. The thing with him is that I believe he's a forward thinker. So he was like, we just can't rush into it. We just have to find the right thing for you. And because I had expressed when I was signing my new deal, I was like, I got to grow. This isn't just about money for me. This is about growing. I have to grow. I have to evolve. I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life. I love wrestling and I need something to dive into. But when I was doing my contract, I didn't quite know what that was. It wasn't until I finished the book, so I was in a little bit of a creative rut. It was early this year. It was like February of this year, and I was like, man, WrestleMania is right around the corner, and I don't know where I fit in. I just know I'm not going to be on the card. I'm not in a storyline. No one's talking about where I fit in, because you can read the room, you can measure the pulse. I would talk to the writers, I would try to pick people's brains and go where do I fit in? And this, by the way, is after being in a company for over 18 years. I'm still climbing and scratching and clawing for my spot, which is half the battle and half the beauty. So Josh Barnett and I got to talking, and he was like, 'Let's do Bloodsport.' I was like, I'd love to do Bloodsport. We got to talking about me doing Bloodsport, and I said, I'm going to ask for permission. I walked up to Triple H. He was at the ringside. He was doing a rehearsal for Monday Night Raw. Walked up to him. I told him, 'Listen, I've spoken to Josh Barnett. I would love to do Bloodsport.' And Hunter was like, Sure. I was so afraid that he was going to say no, because I was like, I really, really, really want to do something Mania weekend. I need to do something, my creative juices are just feeling so stifled. He said yes right away. And he's like, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, no problem at all. And I know that the company really respects Josh, and they've let talent work and do stuff at Bloodsport before. He said yes, so supportively that I was like, I remember that day. I was so excited. I ran up to TJ, and I was like, Hunter loved it. He was like, Yeah, go for it. So I took that as a this is my mission to build something that I've never built before."
On having Rage Against The Machine as her entrance song:
"It's just different. I just wanted different, and I wanted the energy to be different, and it's just a gritty thing, but the thing is I can do it. I can easily parlay it into WWE. And so that's the hope, is that while it's taken me a long time for my ship to really come in, I really want to go on a powerful run in WWE. That's my goal. That's my dream. I think when people read the book, I think it's going to move them. It's going to move them in a way that like I want people to cry. I want them to laugh their asses off. I want tears streaming down their face when they're getting to those powerful chapters and they're like, holy sh*t, I can't wait to get to the next page, because I'm telling you, people are going to read this book very fast. It's like binging a book."
On what was the most difficult chapter of the book to write:
"I think the most difficult topic to cover was TJ's injury. I had sleepless nights writing about those chapters. Those were the chapters that they pulled at my heart because they were really [tough]. Even with the stuff that, you know, we think about the Hart family, you think about all the things, there's been highs and lows. Owen's death was very tragic. My dad in his struggles, growing up with a parent that my dad struggled his whole, entire adult life, and so I had so I had so much instability that when I was a kid that I've never shared. I've never shared any of it until writing this book, that people were like, Oh, I had no idea that for two years my sisters and my mom and I lived at my grandfather's house, and we shared a bed. We shared one bed, and we all four slept in that bed for two years, because my dad lost everything, and so my mom was trying to create some stability for us. We were never, ever homeless. We lived at the Hart House, but there was only one available room. So it really taught me about like I got to sink or swim. Those were hard chapters to write about, because I talk a lot about my dad's addiction and the things that we went through, and it was just those. Those were hard, but they were nothing like writing about TJ's chapters of his injury and what we went through."
Did you know he was injured?
"I knew TJ couldn't move. Because Cesaro was trying to talk to him, and he [TJ] couldn't move, he literally just wouldn't. I knew he wasn't okay. I knew by the way, his hands, everything just was like almost curled for a split second. I don't want to get too dramatic, but it didn't look like a normal landing. His body just looked different. Sometimes if you hit a spider, they kind of curl up a little bit, it looked like he landed in a way that his body didn't look natural and at ease. Because when TJ first landed, he was paralyzed for like 10 seconds, and so Claudio tried to grab him, to pull him out of the ring, and TJ said, ‘Don't touch me. Don't touch me.’ And then after being paralyzed for 10 seconds, TJ was able to regroup. He got up, he launched himself out of the ring. And that's the thing, is that when you saw the way that TJ was, and I write a lot about it, and I go into detail again, don't want to give it all away, but when I saw how TJ was acting, he wasn't acting like someone that broke his neck. When you think of somebody that is injured, they're limping, they're vulnerable, they're crying. TJ was angry."
On TJ walking to the back after that match:
"He was very angry, and it was because he was scared. So that's the thing, is that people deal with trauma in different ways. So, for example, I broke my ankle many years ago, 2016 small, little injury. But I remember just being so scared. I wanted the whole match to just end right then and there. TJ, I think because of being paralyzed, it scared him in a way that it went from fear to rage. So once he was not paralyzed anymore, the fear turned into rage. So people really didn't know that he had a broken neck, because he was walking around like normal. He's walking around, and he was just very, very angry and scared, and all of it was just coming out all at once. But those were hard chapters to write about, because I just knew once we found out from the doctors that TJ had this type of injury, the one doctor was so blunt. He was like, ‘Oh yeah, you're never, ever wrestling again. You have to find another profession.’ He was very, very cold and blunt, and I wrote about it in the book. I just looked at Cesaro, because Cesaro was with us at the hospital. Cesaro had a tear rolling down his face. Because everybody that knows TJ just knows that he loves this. And Cesaro just knew that that was like a death and losing something that you love so much, there was a grieving there too. I also will say, just adding this, and I wrote about this in the book. My heart broke for Samoa Joe, because nobody wants to ever go through anything like that. That was the last thing in the world that he wanted. He is somebody that in the industry, Joe, I believe, and I have a pretty good pulse on the industry, not just in WWE. Joe is very respected. He's a great guy. The guys love Joe. He's got a great reputation. He's a great person. He loves the industry. He's very honorable. So it was the last thing in the world that Joe wanted. So my heart also broke for Joe, because I just always felt so bad that he had to carry that too. People say mean things all the time to all of us on social media, but that's the last thing in the world that Joe wanted. So I always had a little spot in my heart for him after that, because I was like, he didn't want that, nobody wanted it. It was a sh*tty situation. Nobody across the board wanted that to happen. But it happened, and it was something that we had to go through. I will say, and I've said this before on your show, TJ's injury led him to, I think, the best chapter of his career, because he has been able to reach so many more people in WWE and in wrestling and in the world by doing the stuff that he's doing now. I think it was, unfortunately, it was part of his destiny, and sometimes you can't f*ck with your destiny. You gotta let it happen, and then you gotta let it help you."
On debuting in the Divas Era:
"It was so difficult because I realized that I couldn't dance to save my life. I tried so, so hard. I took dance classes, I hired private coaches to try to [teach me], because I had always heard Vince love dancing. So I wanted to learn, let me learn how to dance. They'll love that. I sucked at it. I wrote about that in the book. But I was like, I gotta try to lose weight. I gotta try to be thin. I gotta look like Torrie Wilson. I always had Torrie on this pedestal because she's to me, I love her physique and she's so beautiful. I was like, I always wanted to look like Torrie, but I couldn't, because my body's not like Torrie’s. I realized that all these things that I thought that they wanted at that time, I was like, I know what they'll like. What if I made every single girl I worked with look like gold? What if I was the, maybe not the star, but you know what I can do really well, I'll be the star maker. I'll be Vince's Star Maker. I wanted to be Vince's Star Maker. I wanted to be the girl that Vince would go, or creative would go, put her with Nattie. Because when I was first getting started, I was like, they don't want me. They don't want this. I'm never going to be them. I'm never going to look like Torrie. I'm never going to look like Kelly Kelly. But you know what I can do? I can make those girls look like a million bucks, and that will be how I get my in. And I actually started to look at myself the way that I felt like they were looking at me, where I was like, I don't really know if I'm worthy of being the champion, I don't think I am."
Did you really feel that?
"Yeah, I started to feel like I was just lucky to have the job. I started to almost talk myself into, 'Do you know how lucky you are to even have this contract with WWE that so many people are fighting to even just get their foot in the door'? I know it's a big dream of yours to be the champion, but in the back of my mind, I started to believe it all. 'You're not exactly what they want. You're not it. You don't have that it factor. You're not the star. You don't look like a star, you don't present yourself like a star. You don't have the aura of a star, but you're lucky that you have a job Nattie, and so just help everyone. Be there for everyone, and make sure that you do your best to make everyone look like gold.' I really embraced that. And then it wasn't until Beth Phoenix, and we tap into this in the book. But Beth Phoenix was coming back from an injury, and she had heard rumblings that they wanted to put the Divas title on her. She called me up, and she's like, 'Hey, I'm not quite ready. I'm coming back from an ACL injury. Nattie, they want to put the title on me.' She goes, 'But you need to try to fight for the title. Try to fight for it, go, go. If you don't believe in yourself, no one's gonna believe in you. You got to be your biggest advocate. Nobody's gonna know how to fight for you better than you.' So Beth really urged me to fight. So I did, and I pled my case, and then I left going, I can't believe I pulled that like, I can't believe I even just presented that I wanted to be the champion, I felt so embarrassed that I was trying to tell my bosses that I wanted to be champion when it's like, no, we all should f*cking want to be champion. If you're wrestling in WWE or wherever it is that you're working for and you don't want to be a champion, you don't belong in the company. But I had just talked myself into you're not really that you're not what they want. So Beth urged me. I did, it was not easy. It wasn't something that Vince agreed to right away, but we did it. And you know, that was my first little taste at being the champion. And then it didn't last long. So it lasted, I think, just a couple months. And then I then I was like, back to I told you, you made a mistake."
On being ringside for Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 26:
"It was crazy because we only found out that we were going to be part of that the night before. So Vince wanted to do this. Vince and Bret were going to do the match, and then Vince had decided the night before that he wanted the whole family out there. Somebody was going into the Hall of Fame. I can't remember what it was, but the family was there, and then Vince decided, listen, the whole family's here, maybe we'll just get them all in the ring, get them all out there with Bret. But then Vince wanted me to slap him. So Vince, before the match, he pulled me aside and he was like, 'I really want you to have this moment.' And I thought that was great. He really cared about me having that moment. So he was like, 'But you have to promise me one thing, Natalie. You have to slap me as hard as you can.'"
Why does he call you Natalie?
"He always called me Natalie. And so he made me promise him that I’m going to hit him hard. He was like, it has to look real, because he didn't want me being scared that he was the boss, where I maybe don't touch him, imagine me at WrestleMania not actually hitting him and I totally miss his face, or whatever. He was like, 'It needs to look good. It needs to look real.' And after the match, Hunter was like, Who taught you how to slap, Steph?"
On realizing Owen Hart passed away:
"My grandfather had gotten a call from Vince, and that was when we knew that Owen was not okay. But Owen and Martha lived about 20 minutes from my grandparents, we all lived in Calgary at the time. So it was just, yeah, I think that was the hardest thing my family ever went through. I think it just caused this domino effect of chaos. My grandfather was much stronger than my grandmother, but my grandmother, Helen, I don't think she ever got over it. I do believe that she died from a broken heart. I think that she had a lot of health complications after that, but she never really got over Owen, and you don't get over that, but she was never okay after that. So it was very hard on my grandfather, because my grandmother was his everything. So it was just a very, very traumatic time for our family."
On how the infamous gimmick was pitched to her:
"I remember with that idea, when the writer came out of the production meeting, he pulled me aside, and he made it very clear this was not his idea. And I remember being like, what's the idea? I thought I was so excited, because earlier in the day, it was like, hey, this head writer wants to talk to you after the production meeting. They have something they want to talk to you about creatively. I remember I had butterflies in my stomach because I was like, Finally, I'm gonna get this cool idea. They're gonna have a plan for me, and this is gonna be what I need. This is gonna be what's gonna finally give me my turning point. Being a good girl pays off. You've been helping everybody Nattie, but this is your time now. He came out of the production meeting and he just kept saying over and over and over again, 'This is not my idea, but this is Vince's idea, and he really loves this idea.' Well, the thing with Vince is that he liked to do things that were a lot about entertainment, and he wanted to do something, I think he saw me as being kind of a serious wrestler. So he's like, let's do something that's gonna make Nattie entertaining. And it was this character, you know, eventually what I'm getting to is this Nattie Neidfart character."
"So that was what the idea was for me to morph into Nattie or Natalya Neidfart. And I remember when the writer was explaining it to me, he's like, 'What you're going to do is you're going to be passing gas, and it's going to lead to this big babyface moment where you have this crazy flatulence, but it's gonna lead to a big babyface moment.' You think about Kurt Angle. He's an Olympic gold medalist, but he's done goofy stuff. The Rock did goofy stuff. Trish Stratus did goofy stuff. I didn't think anybody was trying to bury me. I think it was just an outlandish, outrageous, kooky, crazy, wacky idea. But I was like, I don't want to fart. I just don't want to do that. But in true Natalya form, I smiled. I said, 'Of course, I'll do it. Not only will I do it, I'm going to make this amazing.' I'm going to own it. I'm going to show Vince that I'm not going to be I'm not going to be difficult. I'm not going to be difficult like my dad. I'm going to go out there and I'm going to make it great. I'm going to do exactly what he wants and I’m gonna be professional."
Could you hear the sound effects?
"Yeah, they would play it off of an audio recorder. They'd play noises and stuff like that. We did it for about six weeks. The thing with Vince, and that whole thing was that he was so helpful. Because Vince, when I first started in WWE, he was in the rehearsals. He was in this. He was helping. He was very, very hands-on. He was a workaholic. He loved being involved in everything. And he was super hands-on with making sure everything was lit right. So he was very helpful with it. I was like, wow, this is so cool. Vince, this is his baby. He's really getting involved. I think he initially cared about it, but I think feedback from people that were watching the product and stuff, they didn't like it. Fans didn't like it. Fans said, This isn't good. And so they stopped. I think enough people had spoken up and said, The fans don't like this. So one of the writers came up to me again and was like, 'Hey, we're not going to do the Nattie Neidfart character. There's been a lot of negative feedback about it from fans and stuff like that. We're just gonna drop it. 'And I go, You know what, in my mind, I was like, I'm so happy that I agreed to that, because now I'm gonna ask for an idea that I want to do. I didn't have to tell Vince or the writers or anybody, no, the fans did it for me. They protected me. And I was able to ask Vince. I pitched another idea, and that's the thing about Vince, is that I would go to him very selectively about ideas that I would have creatively, and he would listen. He always listened. He always made time for me, always, always. There was never a moment where I knocked on his door and he said [no]. I could say, 'Vince, I want to run an idea by you.' He's the boss. I mean, sometimes it would take a minute to get to him, but he would listen to the ideas. He didn't like a lot of my ideas, but he did listen."
What is Natalya grateful for?
"My health, my brain and the people who are reading my book."
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