Back in 2010, Celeste Bonin signed with WWE and she went on to be known as Kaitlyn. Over the next few years Kaitlyn became one of the fastest rising stars in the Divas division. She went on to have a notable feud with AJ Lee, and become a one time Divas Champion, but her run with the company abruptly came to an end in 2014.
While talking about her WWE departure during an appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Celeste Bonin explained that she asked for her release because she was unhappy and felt she needed to remove herself from wrestling.
“It was in Baltimore, and funny enough, Baltimore was where I debuted. Now, being in Baltimore, the day that I asked for my release, it was like this horrible travel day. I didn’t even get travel that week. Someone knew in Talent Relations, they weren’t going to bring me to TV, and I’m like, oh my God! So I had reached out to Tom, that writer, and I was like, ‘I’m not booked for TV this weekend.’ You always want to just be at TV because you never know if they’re going to write you in. I didn’t get travel, and so he pulled some strings, and I got travel literally last minute, and it was January in Baltimore, and so it was like a snowstorm, and it was like the most horrific time getting there. Finally got there, and I obviously wasn’t on the show, wasn’t booked. I like looked around and I was like, oh my god, I debuted here, and it was this full circle moment, and kind of gave me this permission, because I had been thinking about it, asking for my release, because I was so unhappy.
So they told me. So I went to Talent Relations, and Mark Carano was sitting there, and I told him. He’s like, ‘Okay, can you sleep on it?’ I was like, okay. I think SmackDown was in Philly or somewhere, and they were like, sleep on it. I think he had gone to talk to Hunter, and that was the kind of feedback. I did, and I felt horrible and awful the next day. But still, I was standing by my decision, and I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t even tell AJ, and I was really close with Big E then too. We were very, very good friends. I didn’t tell anybody because I didn’t want it to be a big deal. I just wanted to leave. I just wanted to be done, and that is one of the things I kind of regretted because I cared about a lot of people there, but I needed to remove myself. I just needed space, so I didn’t tell anybody. Then of course, a lot of people knew the next day, the writers knew, and everybody essentially knew.
So they gave me one last match, it was on Main Event, and it was against AJ. I don’t even remember the match, but I was so sick to my stomach all day, and AJ of course was very upset, and she was trying to be supportive and her and Tamina were kind of paired up at that time. So we had the match and then I just took a really brutal super kick to the face from Tamina and that was it. I hated it because I felt so sick, and I just wanted to leave, and I was sad. It was just this amalgamation; it wasn’t good.”