CJ Perry + Rusev on Near-Divorce: ‘He Served Divorce Papers on My Birthday’

WWE Superstar Rusev and CJ Perry (fka Lana) have opened up about their short-lived separation. In a new interview, Perry claims Rusev worked with a lawyer to serve divorce papers on her birthday, which Rusev denies.

Rusev and Perry spoke about their 2024 near-divorce on the first episode of Perry's new podcast, Identity Crisis. The couple reconciled in 2025.

“He served divorce papers on my birthday. This is [a] shoot," Perry says. "He tried to overnight divorce papers. It just happens to be that we share the same computer and his email happened to be up. I see that it’s the attorney, the divorce attorney that he had that had contacted me. I see on March 22 the attorney had responded to him, ‘Okay, let me try to overnight it so I can beat her to the punch.’ I was reading it, ‘He wants to beat me to the punch? This is our marriage.’"

Perry's birthday is March 24, though Rusev claims on the podcast that her birthday is March 23. Rusev disputes the narrative that Perry paints in the interview, jokingly calling it "the CM Punk storyline" in reference to WWE terminating Punk on his wedding day in 2014.

As for their time apart, Rusev reveals he had resumed dating back in his native Bulgaria.

“I went on a few dates. I just wanted some conversations," he claims. "With [CJ], I’ve never even talked to [another] woman because I’m a respectful husband. I just wanted to see what kind of a conversation I could have with another female. [I went on] two or three. I didn’t want to go and have sex with them, I just wanted to have a conversation. That’s all it was.”

Check out the full podcast episode below, where divorce talk begins at 32:12.