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Carmella says she is retired from professional wrestling. The former WWE star made the comment on her Hot Mom Sh-t podcast during a conversation with actor, comedian and author Laura Clery, and it came up almost in passing while she was explaining how she and her husband first got together. Carmella was asked about her marriage to WWE announcer Corey Graves and how the two started dating. Both were working for WWE at the time, which meant their relationship and their jobs ran into each other constantly. “We worked together. So, we met through work. We worked together all the time, and then we were home. I related a little bit to your book and you’re saying, ‘our dates were all about half romance, half business planning,’ so we did that,” Carmella said. “Luckily, I’m retired now, so it’s definitely a little bit different, but yeah, we met at work.” Clery picked up on the word and asked about it, and Carmella did not walk it back. “I was a professional wrestler, so it’s like I can’t wrestle anymore. I’m a mom. I have kids. So that’s kind of like, I’m retired,” she said. She has not wrestled since 2023, when she stepped away to give birth to her first child with Graves. She dealt with drop foot following that pregnancy. She left WWE in February 2025 and has since had a second child. As recently as May 2025, she had said she would like to get back in the ring at some point, which makes the podcast comment a shift in how she is talking about her career. Graves, who married Carmella in 2022, is still on the road regularly as part of WWE’s broadcast team. Carmella closed the topic with a story about her toddler trying to work out why one parent leaves the house for work and the other does not. “My 2-year-old does not understand, because my husband travels so much for work still. And I’ll be like, ‘Okay, I have to go work.’ And he’s like, ‘But you’re going downstairs.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but that’s Mommy’s work.’ I know he doesn’t understand, but funny,” she said. Why Carmella retired without ever announcing it There was no farewell match and no statement, and based on how she said it, there was probably never going to be one. Carmella did not sit down to announce a retirement. She used the word while telling a story about her husband, Clery noticed it, and she shrugged and agreed. That is usually how these things actually end for wrestlers who leave while their bodies still work and their lives have moved somewhere else. The formal goodbye is the exception, not the rule. The three-year gap is the part that made this inevitable. She last wrestled in 2023, had two children, dealt with a nerve issue that affected her ability to walk properly, and then exited the company in early 2025. Getting back to television shape after all of that is a serious undertaking, and it would mean going back on the road while Graves is already gone most weeks. Someone has to be home. She has decided it is her, and she does not sound conflicted about it. What she has instead is a podcast with her name on it and a growing audience outside wrestling, which is a better long-term position than a part-time return would have given her. Expect a nostalgia appearance somewhere down the line, because WWE always finds a use for familiar faces at anniversary shows and Royal Rumbles. A full-time run is a different question, and she has answered it.