Paige has revealed she finds it "hard to be close" to people following the leak of her sex tape earlier this year.
The 25-year-old professional wrestler – whose real name is Saraya-Jade Bevis – had her world turned upside down in March this year when explicit photos and videos of her were shared online without her consent.
Now, she has opened up about the scandal, and she insists she now "craves privacy", as she is often approached about the leak whenever she leaves the house.
Speaking about her need for privacy, she said: "I crave privacy. I want it. I don’t even want to tell people the next time I speak to a guy, I don’t want people to know about it, and it’s mostly because of what’s happened this year. That scarred me, just people invading my privacy to a point where sometimes I don’t even want to go out, because I’m like ‘People are just looking at me bad’.
"For example, I was out with my friends and we were just sitting there. We had like a bloody mary or whatever but this guy goes up to my friend and goes ‘That’s the porn star. I j***ed off to her yesterday.’ And you know what, my friend literally stood up for me so much, but I was just sitting there, like I was super f***ing bummed out."
Paige – who split from fellow wrestler Alberto Del Rio earlier this year – admits the experience has left her more wary of those she gets close to, and says she finds it difficult to trust loved ones since the leak.
She added: "I just went in the toilet, and they don’t know but like I cried in the toilet. It’s just one of those things. I don’t cry a lot either, but it’s just one of those things where I find it really hard to be close to anybody, and that’s exactly the reason why."
The wrestling star – who made her return to WWE last month after having been suspended after breaking their Wellness Policy in 2016 – also insists the photos and videos don’t define who she is as a person, and has urged other young girls to "be careful" when it comes to sharing private content.
Speaking during an appearance on Lilian Garcia’s ‘Chasing Glory’ podcast, Paige said: "I’m not a bad person. And those are the kind of things that I don’t want to be known as. That’s not me, people make mistakes. I’ve made a ton of mistakes and that was one of them. I was young, I was dumb, I was like 19, 20.
"I was dumb, and those are the kind of things that I just wanna tell girls like … Social media is a big thing these days, cameras are a big thing, just be just be careful what you do with it. Because you never know what you’re going to be doing in your future."
Paige opens up on sex tape leak
