BKFC fighter Sheena Starr under fire after controversial Paige VanZant comments

BKFC fighter Sheena Starr is under fire after a controversial comment about former UFC fighter and new BKFC signee Paige VanZant.

Starr, who is 1-1 as a bare knuckle fighter, recently shared her belief that VanZant’s hype train will be derailed in the BKFC ring. Regrettably, her trash talk included a comment that immediately stood out as extremely distasteful given VanZant’s history of sexual abuse.

CW: Sexual assault

Disgusting. Paige VanZant was gang raped in high school and experienced severe bullying after. Probably heard comments exactly like this. It can already be difficult for survivors to reform healthy bonds with sexuality. Slut shaming is gross toward anyone. pic.twitter.com/SJWsJI3F9v

— Alex Scaffidi (@alexscaffidi_) November 25, 2020

“I can’t wait for her hype train to be derailed worse than the train that was ran on her at Team Alpha Male,” Starr said, referencing VanZant’s previous training at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California.

As anyone who read VanZant’s 2018 memoir Rise: Surviving the Fight of My Life knows, she was gang raped at the age of 14 and mercilessly bullied thereafter—making Starr’s comments extremely distasteful.

“I felt like I was a smart girl,” VanZant said on Good Morning America in 2018, recounting the night of her sexual assault (via MMAJunkie). “My parents raised me well. They raised me to know better and to have some intuition, and it all went out the window just because I was so lonely, and I was in so much pain. All I could think about is like, ‘Wow, I have somebody that wants to be my friend.’

“When I walked in the door of their house, I was like, ‘This probably isn’t a good idea.”

After her assault, VanZant was bullied so ferociously that she contemplated suicide.

Since her initial comment about Paige VanZant, Sheena Starr has issued a statement, claiming that she was unaware of her fellow BKFC fighter’s history. However, she did not apologize, nor did she rescind her scurrilous and completely unsubstantiated comments about incidents involving VanZant at Team Alpha Male.

https://www.facebook.com/FLAG.MMA/posts/5548830368476264

“This is absolutely horrible,” Starr wrote on Facebook after coming under fire for her comment about VanZant. “I had no idea about her past assault. Please nobody think that the quote that was made had anything to do with this as it was just brought to my attention today, also I would never take a stab at anyone in regards to being legitimately assaulted and if I knew of this prior I would have given a different quote completely.

“What the rumor is with Alpha male is what she did,” Starr added. “Her sexual assault is what someone else did to her… totally different ya know. Don’t twist it.”