Ronda Rousey has candidly laid bare her struggles with bulimia, depression, and suicidal thoughts – while opening up about the horrifying abuse she has suffered at the hands of her coaches throughout her fighting career.

The former UFC and WWE star, 37, sat down with Steven Bartlett on his Diary of a CEO podcast to discuss her troubled journey.

She explained that her rocky road started at just eight years old when her father took his own life before she went on to battle eating disorders, abuse and mental health issues.

Ronda, who elsewhere in the interview accused Vince McMahon of creating a ‘fundamentally sick environment’ at WWE, also detailed how she had tragically suffered two miscarriages and blamed herself, adding: ‘I always felt like that was my fault.’

Ronda Rousey has candidly laid bare her struggles with bulimia, abuse from coaches and depression as she revealed how she was almost driven to suicide

The former UFC and WWE star, 37, sat down with Steven Bartlett on his Diary of a CEO podcast to discuss her traumatic journey

Ronda began by telling the host that her agony began at a young age despite thinking ‘everything was perfect and awesome.’

‘My dad passed when I was eight. I didn’t know but he had broken his back in a sledding accident when we’d first moved to North Dakota and he had a rare blood disorder where he couldn’t heal from it.

‘He had been receiving diagnoses basically saying he would become a paraplegic and then a quadriplegic and could eventually die.

‘We didn’t know that he was going through this or dealing with chronic pain or anything like that.

‘He ended up taking his life when I was eight… My whole world turned upside down.’

She continued: ‘He said he didn’t want our last memories of him to be laying in a bed with tubes running in and out of him. He was in a lot of pain all the time but didn’t like being doped up on painkiller so he just wanted to go out in his own way.’

Ronda, whose grandfather had also previously died by suicide, said that it had  a long-lasting emotional toll.

‘In the long run I felt like it gave me this feeling that even if I feel like everything is okay, everything can come crashing down at any moment.

She explained that her rocky road started at just eight years old when her father took his own life

Ronda, who was teased as a teen for her muscular statue, dropped out of school when she was 16 to do judo full time and moved in with coach Jim Pedros – where she started making a name for herself in the sport

‘I lost any feeling of security even when everything’s going great. I feel like the ball is about to drop and that’s something I had to work through till this day.’

Ronda, who was teased as a teen for her muscular stature, dropped out of school when she was 16 to do judo full time and moved in with coach Jim Pedros – and quickly began making a name for herself in the sport.

But it was also around this time that she first began struggling with bulimia.

‘I had to be a certain weight on a deadline very often. And it’s not really a weight that I could healthily stay at and so I would have to cut weight to get there.

‘It started to give me a really unhealthy relationship with food where I would hoard food while I was cutting weight – like candy bars and stuff like that – and then after I made weight I would like gorge myself on it.

‘I didn’t have any resources to help me out with it and so it just kind of spiraled into a disorder.’

Ronda said she would also sometimes make herself sick after eating.

‘I remember the first time I did it. I had a childhood coach or something who took me out one day and he basically forced me to have a chocolate shake.

‘He was like, “NNo you have to have a chocolate shake come on, it’s fine, you train all the time, you need to relax, you have a chocolate shake.”

She said: ‘I lost any feeling o f security even when everything’s g oing great. I feel like the ball is ab out to drop and that’s something I had to work through till this day’

‘Honestly I can’t think of single coach t hat I had a great relationship with,’ Ronda candidly  told host Steven

‘I felt so guilty about the chocolate shake and I had to make weight that weekend – there was no way I would be able to make it.

‘I made myself throw up the chocolate shake and it was cold, it didn’t hurt, it wasn’t that bad…

‘I thought it was a one time thing but the next time I like ate too much and I felt really guilty about it, it just became the panic button… I felt like it was the only thing I could do.’

She continued: ‘You have all this outside pressure to be able to maintain the same weight even though as an athlete you’re growing and putting on muscle and even getting taller so it was kind of like fighting nature.’

Ronda’s health journey only worsened from the outset of her career with little being known at the time about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy – a progressive degenerative disease affecting people who have suffered repeated concussions and traumatic brain injuries.

‘People didn’t really know about CTE back when I was doing judo and I would get concussions all the time,’ the athlete explained.

‘”My head hurts, I have photo vision” – I  would say stuff like that and they would just say “stop being a p**sy and keep training.”

‘I would get dozens and dozens of concussions and never be allowed to stop.

‘I would have to keep training through them and the symptoms would persist for weeks to the point that I was experiencing concussion symptoms more often than I wasn’t for a 10-year judo career.’

She explained: ‘This is the kind of injury that accumulates over time. It doesn’t go away. Every time you get a concussion it’s easier to get another one.

‘And so by the time I got into MMA it was really easy for me to to get concussion symptoms. I’d rested for a couple years so at first it wasn’t so bad but it just got worse and worse and worse with time.’

‘I had to keep it a secret from everybody. I just didn’t want face up to it. I just thought that I could keep it going forever.’

But she said that her training regimes implemented by coaches were relentless.

‘Honestly I can’t think of single coach that I had a great relationship with,’ Ronda admitted.

‘A lot of the coaches were of that generation where they thought that being abusive to the athletes is what gave them the best result and that was kind of what was in vogue at the time.

Ronda turned her attentions from UFC to WWE but took a two-year gap in between during which time she said: ‘I was mostly just being sad’

‘As an athlete you’re just kind of like, “Alright, well this is what I have to deal with in order to be the best,” especially with these sports where you have no other choice – this is the national team coach and you have to get their approval and put up their s**t to be able to to fight at this level.

‘Edmond [Tarverdyan] was not as bad as previous coaches so that’s why I put up with a lot because I felt like I at least had a say. I could talk back.’

Shockingly, she explained: ‘My first coach literally dislocated my jaw. I was a little kid, I threw him once in front of everybody and and laughed because I thought it was awesome.

‘He threw me on the benches on top of the table at everybody else’s feet in front of all these people.

‘Big Jim had grabbed me by the throat before to drive his point home that women can’t defend themselves. This is behavior that I have been conditioned to tolerate since I was a little girl.

‘Edmond was of that same Eastern European kind of school of thought of you have to be really tough in order to bring the best out of people.’

Explaining the emotional impact, she said: ‘I think it taught me from a young age how to diffuse coaches that were getting out of hand because if I stood up for myself it would just make it worse.

‘It’s not so much one individual that’s a huge problem. I think the whole system is the problem and that it really reinforces these power imbalances that are inevitably taken advantage of.

‘All these coaches have free reign of their little fiefdoms and a lot of these athletes don’t have any other option.’

Ronda said that her coaches would sometimes ‘blur the lines,’ adding: ‘A lot of it was like he just wanted to know where I was all the time and I needed to be constantly available and stuff like that or else it would end up turning into a big argument.

‘I just end up trying to do anything I could to not get in an argument… You would just put up with it because there was no perfect option out there.’

‘I would cry on the mat all the time. I cried on the mat like every practice for years straight and I would get yelled at for crying.

‘I got yelled at for crying and then I would cry because I was crying and I would cry because I was being yelled at for crying.

‘But it wouldn’t be because something hurt. It would be because I was frustrated by something.’

Ronda had previously told Ellen DeGeneres that she had been left feeling suicidal following her loss to Holly Holm in 2015.

She said it had been ‘depressing and soul crushing’ and left her with suicidal ideation the moment the bout ended.

‘It was basically instantly when I came backstage. Suicide is the kind of thing that becomes more prevalent if it’s in your family and I’ve literally had two generations of suicide ahead of me.

‘It’s just something that is always an option in your mind once it’s shown to you.’

Ronda said it was her relationship with husband Travis Browne that prevented her from acting on her suicidal thoughts.

‘I didn’t want to take the pain that I had in me and give it to him because that’s how I experienced suicide – like okay you get to relieve yourself of that pain but you have to pass it on to everybody else…

‘I was going to live for him and for my family so that they wouldn’t have to take the pain that I was feeling onto them.’

Ronda turned her attentions from UFC to WWE but took a two-year gap in between.

Asked what she did during that time she shared: ‘I was mostly just being sad. I was sad and high and playing video games and eating crepes.

‘Everybody wants to rush you through grieving things but I think it’s important and so I took that time to myself.

‘I was also just so worn out from running on fumes for years on end and literally dragging myself out of bed every morning and having to dig deep every second of the day.

‘I wanted to just disappear… I didn’t want to be famous anymore.’

She continued: ‘I don’t think anyone can understand how exhausted I was and how much had been asked of me for so long that I just needed to rest. I needed to mentally and physically rest… I had nothing left in me.’

‘I guess you could call it depression but I didn’t see anyone and get it diagnosed.’

There would be yet more heartbreak for Ronda after trying for children with Travis, whom she married in 2017.

She had been filming for TV show 911 which involved fight scenes and various stunts.

‘I found out I was pregnant right before the show started filming and then my finger got chopped off from a boat door falling on it.

‘We went and got it checked out and the baby seemed just fine but then I miscarried a couple weeks later.

‘I always felt like that was my fault that I wanted to keep doing dangerous stuff while I was pregnant because I thought it made me cool. Then I was just depressed and drinking and smoking – not taking care of myself.

‘Then got pregnant right away again and then we never even saw a heartbeat that time but I wasn’t expecting anything more because I just wasn’t taking care of myself.’

The mom, who now cares for Travis’ two children from a previous relationship as well as a daughter together, is continuing to try to build her family through IVF.

‘No one wants to burden anybody else with what they’re going through but a lot of times it’s not you’re not burdening other people… you’re offering something to other people that are going through the same thing.

‘A lot of times as a woman you can feel like it’s your fault but your peak productive years are your peak athletic years so I decided to use those on my career,’ she shared.

Reflecting on her success through metaphor, she said: ‘I think I had to get to the top of several mountains to realize that the mountain climbing wasn’t really going to be what made me happy.

‘I had this idea that if I collected or hoarded achievements that someday they would all add up to happiness… It didn’t really work like that.

‘I could achieve these great things and it would make me happy for a time but your life goes on past that.’