In February 2004, Dawn Pappas joined WWE as a media relations manager in Canada. Pappas had a background EMI Music Canada and BMG Music Canada before joining WWE.
Pappas admitted she didn't know much about wrestling when she was hired by WWE, only citing Roddy Piper and Cyndi Lauper as her points of reference. Pappas had worked with the likes of P. Diddy in the past and was used to dealing with larger than life figures in her line of business.
Speaking on Chosen Life Podcast, Pappas recalled an incident with Vince McMahon where he yelled at her during a red carpet event.
"Vince did yell at me one night. He yelled at me, we were doing a red carpet event in Anaheim and we were running behind schedule. When he got out of his car, he yelled at me. I don't think Vince knew me from a hole in the wall, but I was the person who was in front of him wearing a WWE badge, so he kind of went off about 'why are we behind schedule? This is unacceptable.' I was like, 'Vince, your first interview is here,' I completely redirected him into what he needed to be doing. All night, people from the American company were like, 'Oh my God, he yelled at you, are you okay?' 'Yeah, he just yelled at me, it's fine, he didn't fire me, I'm good.' I would bet my life on this, he wasn't mad at me, it wasn't Dawn's fault that we were running behind schedule. He just needed to vent this out before he went and spoke to a camera," she said.
Pappas left WWE after over three years with the company.
Speaking on her departure, she said, "As much fun as it was, there were a lot of politics in the company. It was sort of, 'I think it's time for me to move on.' They were wanting me to do a lot more things that I wasn't really interested in doing like they were doing a lot of global expansion and I wasn't interested in being part of that."
Elsewhere during the interview, Pappas recalled working with McMahon and her general thoughts on him. You can find her comments by clicking here.
McMahon retired from his position as WWE CEO in July 2022 amid sexual misconduct and hush money allegations but returned on January 6 as a member of the board to help with media rights negotiations and a potential sale.
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