The IInspiration is back in the fold, but they weren’t sure that would always be the case.
The return of the Off Her Chops podcast saw The IInspiration discuss their hiatus from the pro wrestling business. Billie Kay and Cassie Lee said that they wanted to step away, but the only people that believed they had retired were the fans.
Jessica McKay: “We’re [scheduled to be] at IMPACT for a couple more months. And then we make the decision that we were going to be leaving IMPACT. It wasn’t just that we were leaving IMPACT. We needed to take a step back from the wrestling industry as a whole. And I…feel like we never used the word retire. But everyone decided that we had retired which was not the case.”
Cassie Lee: “And we were very specific on our wording when we announced it. And even to this day, people still think we’re retired. I was like ‘nobody ever said the word retire, and there was a specific reason for that,’ is because we didn’t know if we would come to the wrestling world.”
McKay: “Yeah, and we didn’t want to be the people who are like, retire and come back, retire and come back, retire and come back, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just…when I retire, I want to be…”
Lee: “Want it to be done!”
Kay: “I’m done. The boots are hung up.”
Tough Situation
The IInspiration said they wanted to take a step back because they had acting aspirations. Cassie also said she had been trying to get pregnant for quite some time.
Lee: “I gotta work this out and I feel like maybe because I keep wrestling, it’s not happening because my body — I keep wrestling, and so, it was tough because it wasn’t a smooth transition out. Only because we weren’t super honest about that. Because if I’m being honest, I don’t think it’s anybody’s business. Hey, I wanna take a step back because I wanna get pregnant. That’s not anyone’s business. But what am I gonna say? You know? It’s tough.”
McKay: “It was a tough situation, and I wish it got resolved quicker. But at the end of the day, our last match was on the pay-per-view pre-show…But it was against one of our best friends, Tenille Dashwood, aka WWE’s Emma, and Madison Rayne…So it was a little tag team match, which I think it was for the championship, women’s tag team titles. So we’re trying to win the back, we wanted to go out as champs you know?”
Cassie Lee and her husband, Shawn Spears, welcomed their son, Austin, in January 2023. Cassie will return to the ring for World Series of Wrestling in Australia in October. McKay remains focused on her acting career.
