Beyond The Ring: An Interview with Former WWE Diva Maryse Ouellet

By: Adam Harrison (@AdamRHarrison) –

Former WWE Diva Maryse Ouellet.

“Not just a pretty face” is a common phrase that comes to mind while speaking with Maryse Ouellet. The model turned pro wrestling diva, simply known just as ‘Maryse’, is a former Playboy bunny and two-time Divas Champion over a five-year career in the WWE. She recently married wrestler Michael Mizanin, better known as The Miz. Although she is enjoying a relaxing married life in Los Angeles at the moment, Ouellet intends to pursue many of her own endeavors. Aesthetic Magazine’s Adam Harrison sat down with the Montreal native to chat about her experience in pro wrestling, life in L.A. and her current projects.

At the beginning of Ouellet’s career with the WWE, she also posed for the cover of Playboy as part of their Girls of Canadaseries. She explains getting in a WWE ring for the first time was much more nerve wrecking than her experience with Playboy. “It’s totally different. Posing for Playboy, I was in a room pretty much, and you can have a million takes, and everybody’s there for hours, and if something doesn’t work you just try something else. You just work the project. With WWE, when you get in the ring, you kind of have one take. So you can’t screw up. That’s messed up!”

Ouellet says that adjusting to married life wasn’t a big change for her, but she laughs at the fact that Mizanin tells her she talks too much. “I’m like who are you to tell me I talk a lot? Look at you; you built your entire career around talking.” She describes herself, in wrestling terms, as the bad guy in the relationship. “As a couple, I think I’m the heel and he’s the baby face. I don’t know what he would say about me saying that.”

Ouellet has been a lifelong Montreal Canadiens fan and still rocks her Patrick Roy shirt on occasion. She took Mizanin to his first hockey game in Anaheim and he admits he loved the ambiance. “I said you can just imagine how it is in Montreal. People are sitting with beers and there’s a goal and it’s like [ahh] and it’s in your hair, it’s crazy.” She explains Mizanin is more of a football fanatic. “I used to go with him when he does the fantasy football with Nathan Zegura [from XM Sirius Radio]. I would sit there and just play on my phone for an hour, because I think it’s the most boring thing in the world. I don’t know if you’ve heard them on that show, but they’re so animated and they’re so loud. I mean it’s ridiculous! He’s in a sound booth and people outside, there’s a restaurant, and they keep turning around.”

“As a couple, I think I’m the heel and he’s the baby face. I don’t know what he would say about me saying that.”

Since leaving the WWE, Ouellet has started her own clothing and jewellery company called House of Maryse and has also become a licensed realtor. “I think being a realtor is the coolest job ever, especially in Los Angeles. The job over there is really different from what you see around the United States or anywhere else. In L.A., being in real estate, it’s kind of like, who’s the star agent and how many celebrities does this agent represent?”

Although many pro wrestlers attempt to make the transition to acting, Ouellet says that’s not a venture she’s attempting yet. “After being in entertainment for so many years, I just decided to kind of take a step back and relax and enjoy life.” She does admit however that she’d love to play a Marvel superhero or a Bond girl one day.

Don’t expect to see the return of Maryse in the ring any time soon either. “I just got married, so I’m enjoying my married life. And maybe, I’m going to, you know, [have] mini Mizes and mini Maryses in 2015.” She admits she hasn’t paid much attention to what’s happening in WWE anymore. “I only watch my husband’s segments. I like his promos.” But, she’s not counting it out of the cards altogether in her future. “Well you never know. You can never say never.”

For aspiring superstars and divas, Ouellet says the best advice is simply never give up on the dream. She says a lot of guys especially give up because they consider themselves not big enough for WWE. “You know what, a lot of top superstars are really small and sometimes are the best on the microphone and they relate to the crowd the best and they get over.” She uses Daniel Bryan, who is generously billed at 5’10” and 210lbs and is the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion, as an example. “He’s totally different from Randy Orton or Batista and he’s kind of like the main event. It really just depends what you can bring on the table.” In reference to her husband, “When he started, they told him ‘well you’re not this, you’re not that.’ Then [he’s] headlining Wrestlemania with The Rock and John Cena and now [he] just finished filming [his third] movie. They said the guy from The Real World and reality TV was never going to make it in wrestling, well, I mean, you need to rethink now, because that just happened.”

“With WWE, when you get in the ring, you kind of have one take. So you can’t screw up.”

It’s apparent in speaking with Ouellet that she’s achieved so much of what she wanted at a very early age. So now she is ready to enjoy some down time and start a family while pursuing some of her own self-made endeavors. But it’s certainly unlikely that this is the last we’ve heard from this feisty diva