10 Things You Need To Know About WWE Divas Champion AJ Lee

10. AJ Dropped Out Of NYU To Pursue Wrestling

According to an interview conducted by Esquire Magazine's official website in August 2012, AJ attended NYU in New York City before financial hardships necessitated her dropping out and focusing on a career in professional wrestling.

I actually went to NYU for six months, had some family issues that kind of set me back, and I couldn't afford to go anymore. That was the theme going on in my whole life, you know: money stopping me from whatever I wanted to do. My dream my entire life was to be a wrestler, so that was my moment where I was like, Okay, let's do it now. I went to wrestling school and found a full-time job to support it.

Her official profile at GloryWrestling.com, a website dedicated to female wrestlers on the Indys, revealed that she majored in film and television production. This revelation puts AJ's success into perspective. Here was a young woman faced with a scenario in which she was forced to drop out of a prestigious school due to money troubles yet never let that hardship derail her. She refocused her attention on a lifelong dream and worked incredibly hard to realize said dream. She starved and drove an endless number of miles in hopes of a paycheck to go along with the experience she would accumulate. That she maintained a full-time job to pay for her "habit" only demonstrates the heart and determination she had to succeed in a business she grew up infatuated with.