Like many around the world, WWE Hall of Famer Tamara Lynn “Sunny” Sytch took to social media in the hours of the terrorist attacks in Paris, expressing anger and shock over the horrifying incidents. But to many who read the comment posted to her public Facebook feed , the outspoken wrestler seemed to go well over the line of decency in her call for the systematic extermination of “the Islams of the world.”
“What I think the world needs is another Holocaust, but this time for the Islams of the world,” Sytch wrote. “The ones who REALLY should be extinguished. HAIL TRUMP!”
Sytch later deleted the public post and posted an apology, attributing the offensive comments to her “off-color sense of humor and outspoken ways.”
The WWE Hall of Famer later sparred with detractors on Twitter, including someone who said that Sunny had blocked her after he accused her of racism . The Twitter user suggested that she don a “white sheet” and included the hashtag “#nazi” in his post, prompting a profane rebuke by Sych.
“[T]he Nazis didn’t wear white sheets and hoods,” replied Sunny, apparently unaware of the significant overlap between white supremacy factions in the United States. “That’s the KKK. Get your hate groups straight,” she continued.
The Holocaust , which spanned 1933 to 1945, was the calculated and institutionalized effort by Nazi Germany to eliminate Jews from the world. The campaign of genocide claimed the lives of an estimated six million Jews. As noted by the BBC , an estimated 15 million civilians were ultimately victims of the Nazis, including Slavs, homosexuals, and political opponents.
According to the Pew Research Center, there are about 1.6 billion Muslims – including both Sunni and Shia Muslims – in the world, comprising approximately 23 percent of the world’s population. Islam is the second-largest religion after Christianity. Over 3.4 million Muslims live in North America. Half a billion live in Africa and the Middle East, and almost one billion followers of Islam live in the Asia-Pacific region. The 2008 book Challenges of the Muslim World: Present Future and Past estimates that around half a billion of the global Muslim population are children.
Sunny’s endorsement of GOP candidate Donald Trump is not terribly surprising given the fact that Trump himself has entertained inflammatory comments regarding Islam in the past. In September, Trump was publicly questioned by a supporter who maintained that President Obama is a Muslim and described practitioners of Islam as “a problem in this country.” The man also asked the presidential hopeful, “When can we get rid of them?” to which Trump replied, “We’re looking at a lot of different things.”
Despite her noteworthy status as a WWE Hall of Famer, Sunny Sytch has had many brushes with controversy – both online and in the real world – over the course of recent years. In September, Sytch was arrested on a bench warrant over her failure to appear in a DUI case out of Pennsylvania. A few years ago, Sytch was arrested three times in one week over a series of domestic violence complaints.
Earlier this year, Sunny engaged in a nasty Twitter spat with former WWE Diva Ashley Massaro . In one of the more cringeworthy moments of their public dust-up, Massaro accused Sytch of “hooking up” with wrestling fans and posted a nude photo of Sunny that allegedly buttressed her claim. Sytch has also raised eyebrows by engaging in chats via Skype in which she allegedly engages in adult-oriented video interactions for money.
Tamara “Sunny” Sytch was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2011. She frequently identifies herself as WWE’s “original diva,” as noted on her WWE Hall of Fame page .
[Image from WWE via YouTube]