Eva Marie On Dying Her Hair Red For Total Divas: ‘Best Business Decision I’ve Ever Made’

Eva Marie is known for her signature red hair, and she recently looked back at how it ended up happening. The WWE alumna went red for Total Divas when she was cast on the show after an initial attempt to dye it blonde went badly.

Marie spoke about the whole thing on Insight With Chris Van Vliet. She talked about how, when stripping her hair color started to turn it orange, she was inspired by Rihanna’s red hair color from the era of her 2010 album Loud. You can see the highlights below:

On Being Asked To Dye Her Hair For Total Divas:

“So [her red hair is the] best business decision I have ever made without me knowing it. My mom’s a hairdresser, so I’ve been dyeing my hair since I was stealing all her stuff since I was like, 15. So I had black, dark hair. That’s my natural hair color. You see my eyebrows? That’s the natural color. When I got a call on Saturday saying that I got the job, they mentioned a lot of the girls that have left were platinum blonde. Because the twins are Mexican-Italian too, so, ‘We don’t want you to look like one of The Bella Twins. Are you okay with changing your hair to platinum blonde?’ I didn’t care. I was like, Yeah, sure, whatever. I’ll dye my hair freaking purple, whatever. So I get to New York for WrestleMania. That was my first day on the job, also, which is unheard of, and they had set this appointment and everything with this really nice salon in New York to dye my hair blonde, we’re going platinum. Well, I’ve been blonde, not like a really cute blonde, whatsoever, in high school, and it was horrible. It was so bad.

On How That Turned Into Her Hair Going Red:

“So in the show, season one, or I think it’s like the first episode. That was real sh*t That was literally like, I’m in the chair, and they’re stripping my hair color from previous colors and stuff, and it starts to kind of look orangey. I literally look at JoJo and I was like, ‘I can’t do it’. I literally say in the chair, ‘I look like Mufasa from The Lion King.’ I look insane. It looks terrible. It’s orange. There is no way. Well, I was listening to Rihanna’s album at the time, it was when she had that crazy fire-red hair. I think her album was called Loud at the time. I was like, dude, her hair is sick. It was just such a fire engine red. I was like, ‘F**k it. Let’s go red.’

“I don’t know exactly what really sparked me to kind of go against the grain, because it was a big gamble, because the Vince and the higher ups were the ones that were requesting this to happen, but deep down, I knew if I were to really go platinum blonde, like Maryse or Kelly Kelly, like that type of blonde, I would be bald, and there’s no way that I would be able to maintain that type of white color for very long without it just ruining [my hair]. I literally would be bald to have that colour hair, because my hair is so dark. So I just really took a gamble, and at the time, because we were called Divas, my saving grace, because I got in trouble, and the girls thought that I was gonna get fired, and I’m sure, looking back, they probably hope that I did. But my saving grace, why I went red and went against the grain was because being a WWE Diva, being a WWE superstar, even to this day, is all about your inner confidence and showcasing that and feeling good about yourself, and then being able to hopefully radiate that from inward to outward. I said that if I went blonde, there’s no way I would be able to put forth the most confident individual, because I would be insecure and self-conscious from the very jump, and that’s not what a Diva embodies.”