Joy Giovanni Reveals What Diva Search Contestants Were Told Before ‘Diss The Diva’ Segment

Joy Giovanni was part of the first WWE Diva Search, and she recently recalled the infamous ‘Diss The Diva’ segment where Carmella DeCesare got dogpiled on by herself and the other contestants. Giovanni spoke with Ring the Belle for a new interview and she talked about the Diva Search, trying to hide the fact that she was a mother and how they all went in on DeCesare during the August 30th, 2004 segment of Raw, which includes a fair amount of profanity.

Giovanni noted that DeCesare had outed that she was a mother and that she was talked to by Stephanie McMahon and WWE production about it after. She also said that one of her agents dropped her because she had a kid, and that the reveal is what led to the scathing comments toward DeCesare during the segment. You can see a few highlights below, (per Wrestling Inc)

On trying to keeping the fact that she was a mother quiet during the Diva Search: “Back then, the industry was completely different.’ It was highly unacceptable [for a woman] to have children. It wasn’t something that people would out loud tell you, just like other types of discrimination, but if an agent, if a manager, if production found out you had kids, you were undesirable. You wouldn’t be at their beck and call, so they wouldn’t want that.”

On ‘Diss The Diva’ segment where she and others went hard against Carmella DeCesare: “They gave us some loose guidelines. I will let you know, we did ask, ‘Are we allowed to say anything at all, or is their a limit to our language?” And they told us to say whatever we wanted, which actually caused another big stir, because at the time, unbeknownst to us, the talent had started getting fined for using profanity because of network television. So we didn’t know. They told us, ‘Say whatever you want.'”