Flowers would be wasted on me. I don't like valentines. I don't need gifts. I'm a pragmatic romantic.
My style comes from a very masculine point, and Valentino has a very masculine fit. It's built for corn-fed guys like me.
I would obviously like to have been arriving in Valencia with the title still up for grabs, let's not kid ourselves, but even though Valentino has won, the season is not over for me.
I have way more freedom in Los Angeles and in the U.S. But it's funny because when I have a meeting with producers or people from the industry, we go to a restaurant to meet someone, and nobody knows me. But all of the sudden, the entire kitchen comes out, and they start taking pictures with me, or at valet parking.
For me, Bloodshot was the least appealing character that Valiant had. He was so cold.
To me, the best part of coming up in that, kind of the last era before it went that way with the FCWs or NXTs, kind of the farm system, is that, you know, wrestling Jimmy Valiant in front of 10 people in Cleveland. We didn't touch. I think we did two things, but we were out there for 20 minutes.
I don't need anyone to validate me.
I don't need plastic in my body to validate me as a woman.
I didn't need the belt to validate me.
I wasn't truly comfortable with myself until I was about 30. I spent so much time and energy wondering if I wasn't worthy, and trying to find people to validate me, instead of validating myself.
If you want to stand with me as a single mom - and I know so many of my friends and colleagues do - please don't appropriate my burden as a way to validate your own. To suggest that you are single-parenting when you are simply solo for the weekend devalues what real single mothers do.
I want validation. I'm not ashamed to say that I need the world to validate me and for people to say, 'You are what you think you are.'
Financially, I've done very well doing what I do. I've got plenty of money in the bank. I've got gigs with FOX doing analyst work, media work. The UFC has been very kind to me. Ultimately, however, I want to be world champion. I have to achieve that to validate my entire career.
I think that Me Too is for everybody. I think it's important that people feel validated.
I had been introduced to rapping in a way where women and people did it, it was structured. It had this very very political structure to it and if you didn't follow the structure, you weren't considered validated or real and that just gave me anxiety.
I always wanted to be more validated as a human being, as a person, than I was as a player. I think that was a really hard balance for me.
It is one of the most validating things for an artist like me, to have people sing along to your songs.
We released '1950,' and I felt so grateful for the response from the queer community as well as just musicians and people in the industry responding to it and validating the art I had made. It makes me feel super hopeful.
In my life, looking at other women who have been pregnant while writing, I always feel like it's kind of their most musical or the closest to themselves. I think for me it's such a validating moment, you know. I always knew I wanted to have kids, and I've been making music all my life.
It's funny; I think I'm at a level of recognizability - is that even a word? - where it's just really nice. I think when people are really famous, it can be hard for them because they feel like it's an invasion. But for me, it's just a few times every day when someone will say something sweet and validating, and it's just the best.
