Simone Johnson, known to WWE fans as Ava, says the harshest backlash she has faced did not come from wrestling fans, but from “so many angry conservative men” who had no idea about her career.
The former on-screen NXT authority figure and daughter of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson opened up about the experience on a podcast, drawing a sharp line between the abuse she has learned to shrug off and the political firestorm she stepped into last year.
Speaking on The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi, Ava described how the couple of waves of criticism felt completely different.
“I was quite used to getting hated on by wrestling fans and I was like, ‘All right, whatever. Fine.’ I’m used to that, blah blah, sh*tting on me because of who my dad is. They’d be calling me every type of slur, but that’s from wrestling fans. However, there were so many angry conservative men that I was like, ‘You don’t even know who I am,’” Ava said.
The backlash stemmed from Ava’s social media activity following the as**ssination of political activist Charlie Kirk in 2025. She shared an X post from comedian Gianmarco Soresi on her Instagram story that read:
“If you want people to have kind words when you pass, you should say kind things when you’re alive.”
Ava later added a message of her own on Twitter/X:
“And I’ll stand behind this. be kind, now more than ever.”
That post drew a flood of negative responses from conservative social media users, many of whom were unfamiliar with her wrestling background. Ava noted that wrestling fans target her largely because of her famous father, while this new wave came from strangers reacting purely to her comments.