Former WWE on-screen personality Renee Paquette (fka Renee Young) announced on Thursday that she has officially received her US citizenship. Born in Ontario, Canada, Paquette signed with the WWE in 2012 and would go on to work for the promotion for eight years as an interviewer, kick-off show host and eventually a color commentator for Monday Night Raw (the first woman to ever do so). She left the company following SummerSlam last year and now works with Fox Sports as well as hosting her Oral Sessions podcast. She’s also pregnant with her first child with AEW star Jon Moxley.
“I became an American citizen today! 4th of July I’m gonna go off! 10000 @budweiser ‘s and 28833992 hotdogs, baby,” Paquette wrote on Instagram. “Thanks for having me USA.”
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She’s explained in numerous interviews what led to her WWE departuer, stating that she felt there was nothing left for her to accomplish once WWE Backstage got axed last year.
“I don’t know if there was a definitive ‘I’m leaving now’ [moment],” Young said while on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast. “Backstage got canceled, I got COVID, a lot of s— just kind of happened… I’m at home, I get my diagnosis, that same day I found out that Backstage gets canceled. But it was really with Backstage being canceled that I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m not really doing anything anymore and my skill set of being a host, there’s just nowhere for me to do it anymore. Even with Talking Smack coming back, I had heard the rumblings that Talking Smack was making its way back, I was planning on perhaps doing that. But I was like, ‘You know what? I feel like I’m taking steps backward. I’m sorta spinning my wheels to go back and do a show. To not be doing it with [Daniel Bryan.] To not be doing it with [former WWE producer and VP of Television Production] Mike Mansury, who also is no longer with WWE. But that was sort of the magic of what that show was to me.
“It was all that stuff happening at once and just being like, ‘What am I doing here? I’ve checked off all the things I’ve been able to do.’ Stepping away from commentary ultimately left kind of a bad taste in my mouth,” she continued. “So going to working for FOX was incredible, and I’ll still be doing stuff for FOX as we’re kind of figuring out what that looks like with WWE and FOX. But I’ll still be working with them on that side of things, so that’s cool. Just not really having any platforms with WWE and spinning my wheels, I’m turning 35. It’s kind of s— or get off the boat. It’s time to start making some other moves. Otherwise, I’m just going to stay here forever and not really be proud of my accomplishments anymore.”
