SPOILER: Unreal Season 3 reveals backstage details on AJ Lee's WWE return in Chicago on SmackDown

The former Women’s IC Champion returned in September 2025.

After years of speculation and rumors, former Divas Champion AJ Lee returned for the first time in WWE on September 5, 2025, on SmackDown in Chicago. Lee returned to join her husband CM Punk and kick off a feud with Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins, eventually leading to her in-ring return at Wrestlepalooza 2025.

The feud ended up in a mixed tag team match, a WarGames match, and two Women’s Intercontinental title matches. The third season of WWE: Unreal premiered today, Thursday, July 21, and has provided more backstage details behind her return, giving fans a never-before-seen look behind the curtain.

AJ Lee signed the contract 30 mins before her return

WWE: Unreal Season 3 revealed that AJ Lee signed her WWE contract only 30 minutes before making her surprise return on SmackDown in Chicago.

The agreement was completed backstage just moments before her appearance, bringing an end to a long absence that had lasted for more than a decade for the former Divas Champion.

In the first episode of the third season, Lee reflected on how her character emerged during an era when WWE’s women’s division was dominated by Bikini Battle Royals and unrealistic physical standards that she did not fit.

“To understand what my character was back in the day, you kind of have to understand the landscape. I came into a world that was Bikini Battle Royals. There was no place for anyone who wasn’t a perfect 10 supermodel, and I was not bringing that.

And I knew that coming in, and I’m proud to be a Jersey 6, you know? I really had to fight and scratch and claw and prove myself to sort of get noticed. Unexpectedly, through that, the fans connected to me.

I needed to change things for everyone who came behind me, for every woman in that locker room. So that became my goal.”

Lee also revealed how the final year of her initial WWE run was overwhelming due to personal, professional, and health challenges, creating what she described as a “perfect storm” that made her realize she needed to step away.

Additionally, achieving the career goals and a successful transition into a New York Times bestseller author left her feeling very positive about a possible return.

“In the last year of my career, so much was happening inside the company, outside of the company, with my husband in the company, with my physical health, with my mental health, that it just was this, like perfect storm of, I’m not okay right now.

I felt like I hit every single milestone on my ten-year wish list of dreams. I did everything. But the tension, the fans, none of that means hit if you’re not alive to enjoy it. I stepped away very content. I wrote my first book. That became a New York Times bestseller. I’ve written comic books. I wrote my first film. I was very much positive I was never coming back.”

However, it all changed for the former Divas Champion when WWE CCO Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque called her and proposed the storylines against Becky Lynch.

“All of a sudden, I get a call that says Paul Levesque. He sort of threw out this idea with Becky. It was the perfect time to pay homage to these fans who have had my back for so long. I ended up saying yes.

There’s a lot of factors that go into the day. 30 minutes before I go out there I didn’t even have the contract signed. That was a little nerve-wracking.”

Lee also said that signing a contract that ensured she was paid and treated on par with her husband, CM Punk, was a “boss-ass moment” for the former Divas Champion.

“To know I’m signing this contract where I am getting paid the way my husband’s getting paid, where I’m being treated like an equal, it was a boss-ass moment, I’m not gonna lie.” 

[H/T: False Finish]

The third season also gives a sneak peek of the backstage reaction, especially CM Punk‘s return and him dealing with the nerves before AJ’s return and the former Divas Champion herself explaining how the return transpired in Chicago.

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