Leah Van Dale poses with son Dimitri (June 2025)
Leah Van Dale
Leah Van Dale’s twelve year career in WWE was marked by record-breaking performances and a growing legion of fans. It was surprisingly successful for a young woman with no prior wrestling experience, trying to win audience share in a world built on hyper-masculine spectacle. “For so long, it was bra-and-panties matches. Women were being exploited. That was not what I wanted for my life,” she recalls. “But by the time I got my contract, women were getting more time, more matches. I thought, let’s see what I can do.”
That decision and nothing-to-lose attitude changed everything. She quickly became a breakout star under her persona, Carmella. I just fell in love with it,” she recalls. “I loved the athletics of it. I loved being physical. I loved being a character and performing. I guess you could say the rest is history.”
For Van Dale, though, her story neither began nor ended in the ring. This dancer turned wrestler parlayed her lifelong performance skills into a new fandom format for WWE’s macho spectacle. Yet her most transformative chapter began not in the ring, but in the deeply personal space of motherhood. Now, she’s taking the lessons of grit, resilience, and showmanship into her next chapter, as founder of ‘Snatch,’ a women’s health and wellness platform rooted in community and defying societal stigma. I sat down with Van Dale to discuss her unexpected path from dancer to wrestler to founder, and why she believes women need to create a new space for unfiltered conversations about their health.
Leah Van Dale: From Underdog to Star in a Male-Dominated Ring
At her core Van Dale has always been a performer. “As a young girl, I was obsessed with dance,” she shares. “I started when I was three. I did everything – tap, jazz, ballet, you name it, I danced it.” After high school, that love took her to the NFL and then to the NBA, with the Lakers in LA, where she was when her dance agent suggested she audition for WWE. Her entrance to the ring came at a time when female wrestlers were getting more exposure, and Van Dale, with her hip-hop style and brash persona stood out.
Professional Wrestling: WWE SummerSlam: Carmella victorious during match at Barclays Center. Brooklyn, NY 8/19/2018 CREDIT: Rob Tringali (Photo by Rob Tringali /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (Set Number: X162079 TK1 )
Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Wrestling With Motherhood
But she admits that away from the spotlight, things were very different. That same woman who projected confidence to millions of fans suffered in silence when it came to her own reality, especially as she faced her own challenges, with pregnancy loss and postpartum recovery. While the number of women in the ring was increasing, conversations around what it meant to be a woman, and particularly a mother, weren’t part of the culture. “We were on the road five days a week, 52 weeks a year. There was no off-season,” she says. “Until I became a mom, I didn’t realize how hard it was to balance.”
Van Dales’ own motherhood journey was anything but straightforward. She suffered back-to-back miscarriages, including an ectopic pregnancy. “When it happened the first time, I was just devastated. And then shortly after, we tried again. And then that’s when I had my ectopic pregnancy… to go through that in such a short period of time back-to-back like that, it was a lot. I didn’t even know what an ectopic pregnancy was,” she admits. “I almost felt shame, like what did I do wrong? How did this happen to me twice in a row? I felt so lonely and isolated.”
Via Leah Van Dale – pic shared on social media October 2022 sharing news of her ectopic pregnancy
Leah Van Dale
Opening the Floodgate to Truth
It was that sense of isolation that made her decide to share her story publicly, motivated to try and break the stigma surrounding fertility struggles. “I just felt like, if I can make any of this into a positive, let me try to tell my story. Because if I’m going through this, other women must be too.” And she quickly learned, she was anything but alone; instead, she received a barrage of messages from friends and fans reaching out to share their stories. “I felt really proud that I was able to open the door for conversations with other women,” she says, “it felt like we were creating a new space, we so badly needed.”
The Ending She Didn’t Script
After Van Dale welcomed her long-awaited baby in November 2023, she was determined to return to WWE. However, a birth injury left her with nerve damage and drop foot, halting her return to the ring. “I told WWE, I know I can’t wrestle, but I would love to come back in any capacity.” That hope ended in early 2025, when she was told her contract would not be renewed. “Legally, they did nothing wrong,” she says. “But after 12 years of being loyal, it was frustrating. Had I not had a baby, maybe they still wouldn’t have renewed my contract. It’s impossible to know. But it’s hard not to connect the two.”
Turning Pain Into a Platform
However, that frustration became fuel for a new version of herself. While wrestling had required she keep her real life hidden, motherhood, and all the pain and joy that that came with it, pushed her to share. “When the miscarriages happened, it was almost like, wait, this is real life. This is what really matters. Not the missed weddings or the grind of being on the road. It shifted my perspective completely.”
Building Snatch
That perspective became the motivation for her new venture: Snatch, a digital community for women, hosted on Mighty Networks that focuses on fertility, sex, pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood: a space for women to share their highs, their lows, and all the days in between. “It was all these little moments, my miscarriages, my three-day labor, my terrible postpartum recovery that made me think, why are we not talking about this?” she says. “Why do I feel so alone? Why am I just supposed to be grateful I had a baby when I’m depressed and struggling? Two things can be true: you can love your baby and still mourn your old life or be frustrated with your recovery.”
Backed by data, the platform blends expert-backed resources with the critical need for community connection. Members can access forums and courses, such as a “First 30” micro-program designed as a survival guide for the first month postpartum, thats both accessible and more affordable. “People come for the information, but they stay for the community,” Van Dale says. “And I’m trying to make it affordable. A lactation consultant can cost close to $300 for one hour. Our entire program is under $100.”
The Power of Saying It Out Loud
Asked how she describes this new version of herself, Van Dale shares she is becoming who she always wanted to be. “Finally, I can use my voice. For so long it was, don’t say the wrong thing, don’t do the wrong thing. Now I’m like, screw that. I can just be Leah Van Dale.” Asked about the name ‘Snatch’, she shares it very much carries intent. She chose it precisely because it’s bold, in-your-face, and a little uncomfortable. “That’s the whole point,” she says. “I want women to feel like they can talk about the things we’re not supposed to.”
Sharing that her advice to younger women she says “don’t be afraid to challenge the system. I just played by the rules, and that only got me so far,” she says. “So rock the boat if you feel confident. Rattle some cages. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. That’s what I wish I’d done earlier.”
At 37, Van Dale is embracing a new kind of strength, one that is a world away from scripted victories and, instead, is fueled by vulnerability, honesty, and community building. “I’m not a doctor. I’m not a clinician. But I know what it feels like to be unseen and unheard,” she says. “And I want to make sure no other woman feels that way.”
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gemmaallen/2025/09/21/from-wwe-to-womens-health-leah-van-dale-on-the-business-of-truth/
