In the image-obsessed world of professional wrestling, few careers survive a public sex tape scandal. Saraya, better known as Paige, is the exception.
She rose as a fiery NXT newcomer to Divas Champion, saw her world implode in 2017, stepped away, and returned in April 2026 with open arms from WWE.
In her first interview since re-signing, on What's Your Story? With Steph McMahon, Saraya Bevis sat down wearing a sleek black top, the championship belt resting on the table beside her, and opened up about the lowest point of her life. Speaking with Stephanie McMahon, one of the highest-ranking WWE executives during Paige's original run, she recalled how the leak of her private videos sent her into a spiral.
The internet had already written her story long before that podcast, refusing to let the raw details disappear.
But Saraya knows how to play the cards.
The videos originated as intimate homemade recordings between 2013 and 2014, when 19-year-old Paige was dating then-WWE talent Brad Maddox.
They quickly escalated: solo masturbation sessions, intercourse with Maddox, and the clip that shocked the wrestling world, an interracial threesome with Maddox and Xavier Woods. The footage was unmistakably amateur: grainy iPhone and camcorder recordings, never meant for public eyes. One clip even showed her NXT Women's Championship belt in the background.
What began as private moments became a global spectacle once the videos leaked in mid-March 2017.
Paige has long maintained the content was stolen in a hack, though in recent years she has directly accused Maddox of leaking it. He has denied involvement. She has said Woods had nothing to do with it. Regardless of the source, the clips spread rapidly across porn sites, Reddit, X, and wrestling forums.
Headlines screamed "Paige Sex Tape Leaked." Porn aggregators used "Paige WWE Threesome" thumbnails. Comment sections filled with crude jokes and slut-shaming. Strangers approached her in public, one drunk fan bluntly calling her a pornstar to her face.
The same platforms that once celebrated her as an edgy, boundary-pushing champion now reduced her to memes and clickbait.
In a separate podcast, One-on-One with Andro Mammo, Saraya described to the host Andro Mammo how she was running out of her house, hiding in a bush outside a grocery store, and reaching a point where she contemplated ending her life. What ultimately pulled her back, she said, were her father's blunt but grounding words: "It’s just sex, everybody does it."
"He stopped me from killing myself," she said.
Read: Hulk Hogan Versus Gawker, And The Fight To Stop The 'Cuckolding' Sex Tape's Virality
Yet even as the backlash raged, Paige leaned heavily into the victim narrative, framing the leak as a devastating invasion of privacy that shattered her mentally and emotionally. WWE, notably, never fired her.
There was no suspension or blacklist.
The company stood by her through the scandal, continued work on her biopic Fighting With My Family, and kept her under contract.
WWE supported Paige through her 2017 leaked sex tape scandal and continued promoting her biopic Fighting With My Family.
After a neck injury forced her in-ring retirement in April 2018, she transitioned to on-screen roles like SmackDown General Manager. The company kept her under contract because she remained a valuable asset beyond wrestling. Though the scandal was deeply traumatic (she has said she felt suicidal), she did not quit WWE immediately afterward.
She stayed with WWE until her contract expired in July 2022, then wrestled in AEW (as Saraya).
Fast-forward to April 2026, and the same dying company that supposedly holds its talent to impossible standards rolled out the red carpet once again on a new multi-year deal.
Long story short, the company quietly moved on while the internet kept the fire alive for years.
Paige re-signed, returned at WrestleMania, and appeared on the podcast discussing sobriety, recovery, and second chances.
The internet reacted with its usual split: fresh waves of support and fresh scorn. Defenders argued that a woman’s private sex life should never define her career and that the non-consensual leak was a gross violation deserving empathy. Critics pointed to the selective framing. As a 19- to 21-year-old, Paige had chosen to record multiple explicit videos with two fellow performers and store the material in a vulnerable way.
While the leak itself was traumatic, her public narrative emphasized violation far more than personal responsibility.
This is where the internet’s role becomes both fascinating and infuriating. It is the ultimate double-edged sword, capable of destroying reputations in hours while shielding those who know how to play the long game.
Saraya’s story is a masterclass in modern redemption. One minute the leak dominates search results and porn sites.
The next, carefully curated podcast appearances and social media posts reframe her as a resilient survivor. Platforms that once called her a "hoe" now praise her comeback.
Compare that to earlier notable celebrity sex-tape scandals, like Kim Kardashian’s 2007 tape, Paris Hilton’s 2004 tape One Night in Paris, and the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s 1995 honeymoon tape, Paige's leak was framed as pure non-consensual violation, leading to stress-induced anorexia, alopecia, depression, substance struggles, and suicidal thoughts she detailed so rawly on the podcast.
Yet the same web that punished her also enabled her return.
The internet delivers both the scandal and the salvation, often from the same keyboards.
She may have survived the leak, the labels, and the lowest point, but the digital record remains unerasable, a permanent reminder that the internet is forgiving her precisely because the internet forgives those who refuse to hold themselves accountable, all while the next generation of talent watches and wonders what the real standard even is anymore.
In the end, Paige is not just a wrestler navigating her career. She is a case study in how the internet destroys, devours, and then redeems on its own chaotic terms, ensuring the explicit past never fully dies but the second act always gets another shot at the spotlight.
Her story is kind of similar to what Anya Ayoung-Chee experienced.
The Miss Universe Trinidad and Tobago had her sex tape leaked in 2009, but managed to tame the spark that nearly consumed her public life, not only to fuel her comeback, but also to emerge as a trailblazer who owned her narrative.
Paige is on ROLL! @Saraya pic.twitter.com/XxzArdcczZ
— WWE (@WWE) May 2, 2026