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One of the more abhorrent and weirder things to emerge from the WWE Universe on social media this year were rumors that Roman Reigns' absence from WWE in order to fight leukemia wasn't real and was a story line.
This came after Roman Reigns relinquished the Universal Title in the middle of the ring on Monday Night RAW, breaking kayfabe in order to reveal his illness - his leukemia had returned. After several months away, Reigns returned to WWE with the good news that he was in remission.
The rumors can be traced back to prominent wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter who erroneously questioned Reigns' own statement about the type of pills he was taking to combat the disease.
This, obviously, led to some universal backlash, but also inevitably sparked a bunch of suggestions that Reigns was faking his illness, sparked also by his appearance in 'Hobbs and Shaw' and his relatively quick return to the ring after going into remission for the second time.
However, as part of the backlash leukemia organisation Leukaemia Care published a Twitter rebuttal to Dave Meltzer's ignorance-filled report that went viral.
A few months later and Leukaemia Care were able to get Roman Reigns on their podcast as a guest and they talked about the above tweet and the rumors suggesting that Reigns faked the illness and here's what he had to say on the matter,
"I think it's just the ignorance of leukemia, I think, you know, the word alone is intimidating, leukemia, it sounds like a cancer word, it sounds like it could take your life, but people haven't realized the different phases."
Reigns then revealed that the WWE had told him not to get involved in the debate surrounding the legitimacy of his illness.
"I did see this tweet, I actually asked if I could retweet it and I was advised not to, because of where we were!"
It's odd that Reigns himself wouldn't be allowed to clarify things, but ultimately it can be said that it was the right call to not allow him to get dragged into an argument of semantics surrounding his personal life.
The full interview with Roman Reigns from Leukaemia Care is well worth a listen and you can catch it here!
Do you think Roman Reigns was right to stay out of the debate over his own illness? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
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