Naomi reveals the tragic reason why she was away from WWE for 6 months in 2019

Naomi was notably absent for half of 2019 after being moved to Monday Night RAW. She was laying low for some time and only revealed in September 2019 on Twitter that she was going through some major personal issues:

She appeared on the Women's Wrestling Weekly podcast (H/T WrestlingInc) and opened up about the issues she was facing that led her to take a six-month hiatus from WWE. She revealed the tragedy that she had gone through - losing her cousin sister while giving birth:

"2019 kicked my a**, pretty much," Naomi said. "I lost my cousin, who was like a sister-cousin. Same age. She passed tragically giving birth so that was — I had never experienced [having to] deal with anything like that, and there was just no way I could focus and work going through that. So I took time off for that. Also, before that happened, I was just extremely exhausted, extremely tired, maybe for the like the past year and, we all work so hard and we never wanna say, 'I need time off' or 'I need a break.'

She said that it was the first time in a decade that she had taken time off for personal reasons. She stated that at that point, she needed to get herself together mentally and that it was an extremely tough time in her life:

Only time in ten years I've ever taken time off, legitimately, was due to injuries and even that isn't time off because you're so stressed out about missing out, your spot being taken and trying to rehab. That's probably one of the most stressful things so, I finally just had to get myself together, mentally, emotionally, physically. I was just breaking down so when I asked for that time off to bury my cousin and to go back home and be there with my family, and her kids that are left here, I end up going to the doctor just to see what was wrong with me because it was very hard for me to get through matches. I was extremely fatigued all the time.

Things seemingly deteriorated and the mental troubles turned into major physical health troubles:

I found out I was severely anemic. I never knew that. So bad to the point where the doctors told me had I came in later, whatever count was at a 9.4, if it would've got under a nine, then I probably would've [needed] a blood transfusion which that blew my mind, because I always thought I'm fine, I'm healthy, I'm working out everyday, I'm eating good.

She revealed that she had been suffering from a stomach ulcer and Vitamin D deficiency as well:

But it was that, and I found out I had a stomach ulcer. I found out I was completely Vitamin D deficient, so I was just… I don't even know how I was going through everything and life and my schedule that way, and so finding that out really woke me up and helped me to realize that I really need to take better care of myself instead of being so focused on everyone and everything else. And just taking a mental break.

This is something that we never knew of and Naomi had every right to keep things under wraps during that period. We never know what happens outside of the ring and off the cameras and we can't imagine how difficult it was for Naomi mentally.

Knowing this, we're happy that she got such a massive pop when returning at the Royal Rumble 2020. She had a great showing and is currently involved in an important storyline on SmackDown.

Hopefully, she finds all the success upon her return and can overcome the difficult year that 2019 was for her.