Originally published on ProWrestlingSheet.

Lio Rush made a big mistake shortly after signing with WWE when he tweeted a joke about Emma's release, and the Raw Superstar says he's since tried to apologize. 

As you may recall, Rush tweeted saying "I guess these are the things that happen when you're not TRULY ready for [Asuka]" following the release of Emma (aka Tenille Dashwood) in October 2017.  The joke backfired and Rush found himself on the receiving end of a wave of condemnation.

Rush himself had only been with the company for a few months, and many of his new colleagues were close with Emma. “It hit me so fast and hard. I was sitting in a Waffle House when I [tweeted that out] and I didn’t even mean it in the slightest way to be hurtful or anything,” Rush told Lilian Garcia on the latest episode of her Chasing Glory podcast.

Lio then explained how he wasn’t expecting people to react so negatively to his comment.

“Ultimately I realized that I messed up,” he said. “And this was such a sensitive moment, such a real moment, and it was new to me because I had never really seen WWE tweet anything out like that, like ‘we’re releasing a Superstar.’”

Adding, "I started getting really depressed and I started thinking about disappearing. I remember reaching out to Paige because of the situation she went through, and everybody saying such negative comments about her, just saying the most hateful things you could possibly think of. I remember feeling like I don’t want to be here anymore, and it was all from a stupid tweet."

Rush says he made attempts to apologize afterward through social media, and he also asked Paige to pass his apology along, but he doesn't know if Emma ever got the message. 

Check out the interview below. (The aforementioned conversation begins around 58 minutes in)