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EVA MARIE RETURNING TO TV FOR BIG REALITY TV FRANCHISE

Former WWE star Natalie Eva Marie has been cast in the forthcoming season of CBS reality series Big Brother: Celebrity Edition, based on social media videos featuring Marie, sporting purple hair, being interviewed about competing in the series at a gym in Los Angeles, CA:

For those who have never seen the series, the premise features a group of strangers living in the same house and being filmed 24/7.  There are events leading to eliminations, until there is one final winner.  The series streams feeds online 24/7 beyond the CBS episodes and is a massive reality franchise for the network.

Marie was first introduced to WWE fans in the inaugural season of the Total Divas reality series in 2013, playing the role of a "newbie" Diva who was starting her career.  She trained at the WWE Performance Center as well as under Brian Kendrick but her primary role was to be featured on the Divas reality series. 

Marie was later brought to the Smackdown roster, where she had an entertaining character who would get a big build-up but then something would happen to prevent her from actually wrestling.  She was obviously due for a push when she was suspended for a violation of the WWE Performance Center.  She never returned to the company as an active performer, distanced herself from the company and announced her departure in August 2017.

Since leaving WWE, Marie has defended professional wrestling, noted that she was brought up to TV too soon and would be open to one day working with the company, telling Rolling Stone in August 2017, "I have such a great relationship with Vince [McMahon], Paul ["Triple H" Levesque] and Stephanie [McMahon]. They gave me an opportunity to step away and film these two films I have done already, and you never know when that relationship will come back. So I might appear at a SummerSlam or WrestleMania. It just so happens that the wrestling craft, you have to be able to give yourself 110 percent to that. And then with acting, you have to do the same, so we decided together that with the films going back to back. I'm going to put my efforts into acting and growing that way. And then you never know: All Red Everything could come back and snatch that title." 

Marie appeared in the 2017 Nicolas Cage feature film Inconceivable and has pursued additional acting work.

Big Brother: Celebrity Edition, will premiere on CBS on 1/21 with the final scheduled for 2/13.

Thanks to Paul Jordan for his assistance.

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