WWE star Sonya Deville says she was living in fight or flight mode after she was the victim of an attempted kidnapping.
Phillip A. Thomas II attempted to kidnap Daria Berenato (Sonya Deville) in August 2020; he invaded her home, and he brought knife, plastic zip ties, and duct tape with him. Deville escaped, and Thomas was ultimately arrested and later sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years of probation after he pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping, armed burglary, and aggravated stalking.
In an interview with Maria Menounos, Deville opened up about the experience. (H/t Fightful for the transcription).
“There’s just so many layers to it,” Deville said. “First of course, it’s fight or flight, and you’re just in the situation, and you deal with the situation, and that night after the incident, I thought I was gonna go back to the house and sleep there because I was stubborn and I was in shock, and I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know left from right at that point. Then, the sun goes down, and I’m uncontrollably shaking, and I’m in a hotel room under an alias name because I’m so paranoid that even though he’s arrested, he’s somehow gonna find me, and I have the dresser pushed up against the door.
“I made Mandy slide the dresser in front of the door on the fifteenth floor of this high rise, and paranoia starts to set in. It’s fight or flight, and then it’s shock, and I went into an autopilot of, ‘What needs to be done? What do we have to do?’ I don’t feel first. I do first, and then I feel later. You do what has to be done, and then you feel later, so I didn’t feel the full effect for what had happened for months. I was in full-blown fight-or-flight, I was living in fight-or-flight mode for months, maybe years.”
The WWE star continued by revealing that she spent some time in a safehouse because they weren’t sure whether Thomas would be able to get out on bail. She described how she struggled with feeling like, despite having been through a traumatic event, life went on.
“I didn’t realize that until, no one knows this either, I went and lived in a safe house for a month because we didn’t know if he was gonna be able to get bail,” Deville said. “It was a 24/7 armed security house. Guys with guns standing at each door, entrance of this home, in a secured location 24/7. It’s just weird. I would go work out at the local LA Fitness and he would come work out with me. That was a weird phase of my life. I didn’t know what was going on. My mom flew down and stayed with me for as long as she could, but then she has to go back to work. My dad came down right away, of course, then he has to go back to work. It’s this really weird thing where something so messed up happens to you, but then life goes on. So that was something that was hard for me to deal with at that time because I am such a ride-or-die and I feel my emotions very hard and true, so I’m like, wait a second, I almost had all this taken away from me, and then life just goes on.”
Deville previously commented on the sentencing of Thomas. Click here to see what she had to say.
The full interview is available here:
