(NBC) – Former World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Gabbi Tuft said she left the house and walked with her “head up high” for the first time Thursday after she came out as transgender.
She cried when she recalled the moment. “I felt so happy,” she told NBC News. “My hair wasn’t in my face, and I wasn’t clenching my fists and hiding my nails. It just felt so amazing.”
Tuft officially announced the news on social media Thursday. In an Instagram photo, she sat alongside an image of herself prior to her transition. “This is me,” she wrote in the caption.
“Unashamed, unabashedly me. This is the side of me that has hidden in the shadows, afraid and fearful of what the world would think; afraid of what my family, friends, and followers would say or do.” “I am no longer afraid and I am no longer fearful,” she wrote. “I can now say with confidence, that I love myself for WHO I am.”
Tuft wrestled professionally from 2007 to 2014, and appeared in WWE shows “Superstars,” “Raw,” “SmackDown” and “WrestleMania.”She retired from wrestling to spend more time with her wife, Priscilla, and their daughter, and began a career as a fitness coach and motivational speaker, according to a press release announcing Tuft’s coming out. READ MORE
