Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
In the meantime, we want to talk about the global wellness economy, which is something that is no longer a niche market. You know that. It's something we like to talk about a lot here at Bloomberg in our especially from our Pursuits team.
It is a six.
Point eight trillion dollar powerhouse projected to hit nearly ten trillion dollars by the end of this decade. That's according to the latest note from the Global Wellness Institute. At the intersection of all that's happening when it comes to the wellness market surge and women's sports is our next guest. For over a decade, Ashley Flair, known to the global audience as Charlotte Flair, has been a top tier superstar for WWE, winning numerous championships, including the WWE Women's Championship
a record fourteen times, unbelievable. Today, she is leveraging her brand equity as an angel investor, specifically in the mental health and a parel space with the brand of self care is for Everyone, and we are delighted to have Ashley Flair. I thought. She joins us from Orlando, Florida, Ashley. Great to have you here with us. First of all, congratulations and all your accomplishments. That's really really cool.
Thank you.
I feel like this might be my biggest one yet. Well tell it goes the way I hope we'll.
Tell us about. Well, let's go there, because you've accomplished so much at the WWE, tell us about you know, your hopes, your dreams, your expectations, and where you are in that process.
You know, I still have hopes and dreams within the WWE and Charlotte Flair and my passion for wrestling means the world to me. And I still, you know, have many years left on my career. But when I was injured last year, you know, there is a shelf life for women in sports, and I really didn't know or I or what do I want to do next? And I have really gravitated towards the self care mental health
space and that's really helped me. I feel get through the last couple of years in my career and feeling like I couldn't talk about anxiety and the pressure of being perfect on screen because the character that I play, Charlotte Flair.
Is so perfect.
And this past year, I feel as since I've gravitated towards the mental health care and talking about it. It's helped grow my brand. I've been able to connect with
fans and realizing it's okay not to be okay. So when this opportunity from self Care, the two owners, Aj and Sasha came to me with this opportunity and asked me to be an angel investor, I was like, Wow, I feel like this is a perfect fit and where to put my money or my investment in my time into them to help make this a safe space for athletes, for public figures, for parents, for anyone, because it has been taboo for so long, and whether it be the
affirming apparel or the easily accessible mental health tools that self cares for everyone that we're trying to grow in twenty twenty six, I'm just honored to be a part of it.
Well, I really admire the week was long winded.
No, no, only adding color important for us. Okay, So, how many of your physical injuries were a mental health journey and did it at all change your perspective on what strength really is.
I definitely think when I hurt my knee, that's I tore my ACL I don't think I was in the right I was in the right state of mind, meaning whether it was imposter syndrome, that dialogue, that how we
talk to ourselves, that in our self talk. I feel like I was in a very negative space and not opening up about it and the anxiety of you know, being a woman that's approaching forty what that looks like, the demands and it's you know, I want to be able to say I'm a woman, and what I want more of is time and all that pressure adding up.
I feel like the reason I hurt my knee is because I wasn't all there performing and for someone who has I always looked at myself as the Iron Woman, and when my knee took me out, I was like, all I know, all I all I viewed myself was as a professional wrestler, Like that's all I am, and
that's not all I am. And I do have a voice, and maybe this is the start of something bigger for me, Like I love being Charlotte, but taking Charlotte to the next level and making these conversations more accessible or not taboo for people in any kind of industry I think is so important.
Yeah, I think there's something too in the timing actlet like, I feel like increasingly athletes are coming out, men and women and just talking about, you know, the stresses, the difficulties, you know, being you know, at a high point and then having an injury and then it's just so tough to come back. We see it over and over. But I think the mental wellness component the stress on athletes of all kinds to perform increasingly, it's really.
Tough, whether it be athletes, whether it be a stay up, you know, a single mom work. I mean, there's it crosses over to everyone. And with the apparel that we've created, walking down the street and you see a sweatshirt that says you are enough, it's that simple and it opens a dialogue. And I hope investing in self care is for everyone with that mission to just make those topics easy every day.
I want to ask you too, though we love talking about the wellness market and all its different shapes and sizes, if you will the wellness market, nearing a seven trillion dollar valuation, talked to us about the due diligence that you guys did that led to the creation of self care is for everyone, you know, and tell us about how you were thinking about it. It's a competitive space.
It's definitely competitive, but so for me, self care is for everyone.
Was founded in twenty eighteen.
I had already been following this site before I even know who the owners were.
It was just like little messaging.
You know, you are enough, you have a voice, my own messaging that I put on my social media, whether it be Twitter, Instagram or TikTok.
I always say, ps I hope you feel beautiful.
Today, because, like you know, on those days as women when you don't feel so beautiful, but you have to show up, you have to put on that smiling face. And for me being on TV, it's like, ps I hope you feel beautiful today as a thirty nine year old woman competing in an industry where like they do ads, you know, like that's just television is hard for women.
So this company was founded in twenty nineteen.
When Aj and Sasha came to me this year, my financial person did their due diligence seeing you know, how they have grown, what this space looks like, you know, will what the investment into them looks like. And for me wanting to have a diversified portfolio, what it where is the best place to put my money to help them grow. And that's how I that's how much I believe in what they've already, what they've already done, and
what they brought to me. Plus they have a six month campaign with Target already with Kleenex, which is an everyday product which you see are messaging on. So from a business standpoint, I am just the investor. Exactly what they have raised, I could not tell you the numbers, but I do know for suicide prevention and a peril it was to me, I was blown away what they've just been able to do with just the online presence, with the two of them, with no other big names attached,
I mean personalities via social promoting them. So that's where I come in, bringing my audience. So you're my investment.
So ashlely, your branding goes on different products, right, is that how it works?
Or no?
I'm sorry, So for this company for self care is everyone. They already started to put their messaging on on everyday products such as Kleenex. We just did a they did a six month deal in Target.
Got it.
So them bringing what they've already been able to do with the help of my branding and push and being their first angel investor got it hoping to grow there.
Thank you for that.
So I believe in what they've already done, and they believe in me and what I have aligned with my with my branding.
That's why they brought me on board.
But I've been able to see their numbers and what they're capable of from a business standpoint. But for me, I believe this was the right investment due to wanting just to help something like how can you go wrong? Yeah, So that to me was like whether I you know, I mean, the ultimate goal is to make money and it is a business, but like to me, when you don't know what to do with not like I don't know what my next step is after WWE. But what
I do know is I want to help people. That's why I invested in them, because I know you can't go wrong and helping create a safe space for people. I want to become the person that I needed growing up, and I felt like investing in self care for everyone was like the perfect step in that and being their angel investor.
Well, I want to go back to that.
If you could go back to Ashley at the beginning of your career, before the global fame, what's one self care mantra that you would whisper to her.
Just believe in yourself, be your own hero. Well like wrestling wasn't always It was never in my you know, to do list or dreams.
Or you know.
I played volleyball in college and I graduated, I was lost. I became a personal trainer. I always was drawn to public relations. I did like PR. But then my little brother, who had a really bad drug addiction, always wanted to follow in my father's footsteps. So I thought, you know, maybe if I tried wrestling, because I was given the opportunity by Triple H or head of Creative Now in twenty twelve, that I could get him on the right path.
So when I started, I really didn't.
Know what I was getting into because I you know, I liked wrestling, but back then, you know, women were secondary storylines.
They were eye candy.
I never viewed myself as a professional wrestler, supermodel, anything like that, so when I started, it was just more me needing to save myself from a prior situation. So it's funny I spent my whole life trying to save my little brother, who ended up dying a couple months after I started when ultimately he saved me and gave me this dream. And I feel I have helped change the landscape for women in a male dominated industry and wrestling.
So if I can take something from nothing and turn what I did, the character Charlotte into today is the most decorated woman of all time. What can I do in the mental health the mental health space with the work ethic and the passion that I had for wrestling and bring that same passion to helping people, you know, create that space with the determination I had in wrestling.
Yeah, and I wish like for my brother who passed away.
Yes he had a drug addiction, but I really feel in two thousand, like from you know, the early two thousands to twenty twelve, I don't think I think it was.
Taboo for men to say they had anxiety.
Or what they were dealing with their pressures and not saying my brother would have been, you know, still with us, but at least like it's okay for men to be like, hey, I'm burnt out.
Yeah, I feel like, you know, it's and first of all and most mostly actually so sorry for your loss and and you know, things that life throws at us and how we figure out a way forward, and then you know, it's really heartening to hear you talk about, you know, wanting to help others, and I get it.
I think COVID though, was something that opened up where everybody was feeling stressed, right, It was something that everybody was talking about mental health and mental wellness, and it was just a really really big change in terms of the conversation more broadly. So I can totally get why you're also drawn to it. I'm also you know you said about men versus women. What was the most difficult aspect of that difference for you in WWE or did you not feel it?
Uh, it's not that you, it's I have so I felt.
I feel the women who came before me that helped change the landscape that have been grinding for the you know, twenty thirty years before me, they probably felt it more. But when I started in the group of women that I came in with who I champion every day, you know, we're not all as close as you know, success and competitiveness and competition takeover and always wanting to be at the top of your business.
But we were part of this change.
And when Stephanie McMahon debuted us and then there was one other girl who debuted a year.
Later, the four Horse Women. That's what we were coined.
As in twenty fifteen when Give Divas a Chance trended for three days. We were part of that rise where we were given the same amount of opportunities and time and segments as the men, and then ultimately myself, Becky Lynch Ronda Rowsey ended up main eventing WrestleMania thirty five and Met Life. And if you had asked someone even maybe a year prior to that with the women ever
made event a show, they would have like laughed. But what we were able to create is that women are capable of selling merchandise, putting people in seats, being top of a card, getting equal opportunities in the ring. So I just from the day I started, I had one goal to where I am now. So do I feel things go like this? One hundred percent? Do I think I'm as big a star as an email? Absolutely?
I almost cussed, but I did it.
We're glad you didn't, but it's a great way to end and you're absolutely right because we're seeing this massive surge and valuations for women's sports, whether it's WNBA and WSL. I mean, there's just so much and women's have.
To give them the opportunity in the backing and the advertising. Yeah, that's it.
Perception is reality and if you do that then the audience follows.
Well, listen, this was a joy. I'm spending some time with you, and good luck and stay in touch and let us know how things are going. Ashley, you you bet, Thank you. Ashley Flair, of course, also known as Charlotte Flair, the WWE superstar, joining us on this Monday and of course talking about her brand self care is for everyone