WWE Superstar Carmella is the moon-walking, trash-talking princess of Staten Island, a character complete with the accent, colorful makeup, big hair, gaudy jewelry and all. But the real woman behind the wrestler, Leah Van Dale, is very much a Massachusetts girl.
Van Dale, the daughter of former WWF jobber (a perennial-loser gig that the business now refers to as “enhancement talent”) Paul Van Dale, hails from Spencer, Massachusetts, is a UMass Dartmouth alum, and a former New England Patriots cheerleader.
So how did someone very much from Boston Red Sox country come to represent a very different — yet equally distinctive — borough around New York Yankees land? Former Laker Girl Van Dale, who has the distinction of being WWE’s first Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match winner, walked TheWrap through that process.