EDMONTON (660 NEWS) — American WWE wrestler Lacey Evans is threatening legal action after she received a speeding ticket in Edmonton.
In a video she posted to Twitter, Evans is heard asking the officer if he “knows who she is” when he pulls her over.
When he tells her that he is issuing a speeding ticket she responds, “You nasty thing, I’ll pay the ticket.” He then tells her to have a good day to which she says, “You have a terrible day sir, Canada is terrible and I can’t wait to get back.”
The officer, chuckling, responds with, “Welcome to Edmonton.”
The video which has now gone viral has caused the hashtag #WelcometoEdmonton to start trending.
Some on social media had suspected that the wrestler was still in character, judging by the tone and language in her comments to the officer, and the sassy southern belle’s response to the ticket was an act.
RCMP in Edmonton said this was a regular traffic stop but would not elaborate on the interaction between Evans and the officer in the video.
When CityNews requested an interview with Evans regarding the incident she responded via Twitter: “He was a nasty, yall are nasties & I’m already in America washing that Canadian scent of my clothes.”
Evans uses ‘shtick’ on social media to get reaction, suggests expert
One social media expert says it can be tricky to draw a line between fact and fiction when someone has a persona between the ropes and they carry it into social media posts–like the video Evans shared online.
“In an instance like this where Lacey Evans is a professional wrestler–she has a shtick, she has a whole persona she adopts for being a wrestler and being in the ring–it’s very difficult because she obviously feels that when she posts things on social media she has to stay in that character–and it makes a lot of sense. But, it does come across as rude,” explained Brittney le Blanc, adding when she first watched the video she, like many, thought it was a gimmick.
“A lot of people took it the wrong way. A lot of people took it as her actually being extremely rude to an officer. And, if the officer wasn’t in on it, he would obviously feel the same way.”
Le Blanc says people share things online to elicit a reaction, and that’s likely why Evans posted her rant.
“People post things because they want the attention, because they want likes,” said le Blanc. “She knew this was something that would strike a chord and she wanted to post it so that people would have reactions to it.”
Le Blanc cautions that with online videos we don’t know what happened before or after the camera started rolling, and most things on social media should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“People set these stages, they set it up, they show a video, and you don’t actually know what’s happening. You don’t know if it’s real or not.”
-with files from Sarolta Saskiw