Cheryl Stixx Posted July 12 Posted July 12 (edited) The Saint is Gone, The Real One’s Here Photography by Petra Collins Story by Erica Campbell 📍 Chateau Marmont, Room 34 “Petra shot me. Petra. Collins.” Cheryl says it like a confession and a mic drop all at once, knees curled up in a vintage armchair like a campy siren at rest. The room is candlelit and hazy with the smell of lilies, something citrusy from her setting spray, and the faint scent of overpriced greens wafting from the Erewhon smoothie she’s halfway through. She’s wearing a Courrèges white cropped knit polo and matching cream miniskirt. Her Marc Jacobs Kiki boots are kicked off and collapsed on the floor like they fainted from adoration. “If you know me, you know this is the dream,” she says. “I feel like I’m in a Petra Collins photo because… I am. I’ve basically been moodboarding this moment since Tumblr. And yes—Petra shot the album cover too. Like… are you kidding? I actually cried when I saw it. She just gets me.” This isn’t just Cheryl’s PAPER cover moment. It’s the first time she’s confirming the rumors: yes, she’s making an album. Yes, it’s called Cherilyn. And yes—it’s done. And yes—it’s coming this August. But you won’t have to wait long to hear it. The first single, ‘idk why it got like that,’ is out July 11. The Chateau, The Comeback, and The Real One Cheryl’s return to OCW earlier this year wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t dramatic either. It just… happened. “I came back like a ripple,” she says, shrugging. “Not a splash. No announcement. Just showed up.” She’d been gone for six years. A lifetime in wrestling years. And while fans speculated and whispered about what drove her away, Cheryl never played into the mystery. Even now, she doesn’t want to rehash it. “It was personal. I followed my heart, and it didn’t pan out,” she says, her tone sharper now. “That’s life. The only part that matters is—I’m here now. Fully. And on fire.” But her real return didn’t happen in the ring. It happened weeks ago—at Summercide. If you were online, you saw it. A moment where Perl jabbed too deep, and something in Cheryl cracked. Onstage. In real time. The cry. The fallout. The Notes app post. It was raw, messy, vulnerable—exactly the kind of thing that would’ve broken her once. But this time? It did the opposite. “It forced something open in me,” she admits. “I don’t even like talking about it because I don’t want it to seem like a ‘branding’ thing. It’s not. But… yeah, I shifted. I stopped pretending. Perl said what she said, and I had to face the fact that it still hurt. And that was… human. And powerful.” And so “The Real Miss Cheryl” was born. She doesn’t call it a transformation. She doesn’t have to. You can see it. The posture. The stillness behind her eyes. It’s not armor. It’s arrival. Wrestling’s Bombshell Wrestling hasn’t changed, she says. “It’s still a sweaty little circus.” But Cheryl? She’s entirely different. “I came back more confident than ever. More experienced. I lived life outside the bubble, and that shaped me. In and out of the ring.” Still, not everyone buys in. “I know how I come off,” she says, motioning to her outfit like a punchline. “People see this and don’t think ‘wrestler.’ And that’s fine. That’s the power of it. I turned the thing they doubted into the thing that defines me. You don’t see a wrestler? Cool. Then see a bombshell. Even better, sugarplum.” She pauses, finishes her drink in one gulp. “Besides. Nobody remembers the rules. They only remember the moment. And baby… I’m the moment.” A Story in Songs The album is called Cherilyn. No alter ego. No persona. Just the name she was born with, laid bare like a handwritten diary entry pressed into vinyl. “I used to write songs like sketches—little emotional doodles,” she says, fiddling with a rhinestone on her miniskirt. “I never thought anyone would hear them. It was for me. Like… a sonic scrapbook.” “I’ve always loved storytelling,” she says. “It’s why I fell in love with wrestling in the first place. And pop music? Same thing. It doesn’t need to be literal—but it’s all there. The emotion, the arc, the big feelings and the little tragedies. Everything you need to know, I’m telling in these songs. I’ve never been this exposed, this bare, this raw.” Cherilyn isn’t just an album—it’s a collection of messy nights, rebirths, comedowns, come-ups, and coded texts. “It’s so cathartic,” she says. “There’s one song I wrote during a really rough time—when I was in rehab again, and it got, like, really serious. It’s about my hometown. About reckoning with who I was, and what I left behind. It hurt to write. It hurt even more to sing. But when I heard it back for the first time, fully finished… I felt healed? Like something closed in me. It’s a beautiful, weird thing—being in full contact with your humanity like that.” The idea of making an actual album felt abstract—until it didn’t. “Last year, before I came back to OCW, I met this guy at a WeHo event. Ey Fegh I. We vibed instantly. He believed in what I was doing before I even knew what I was doing. And Danny—my brother—was already producing stuff, so it all kinda snapped into place.” They started recording, and something clicked. “We started writing like mad. It was fun, and weird, and intense, and I honestly forgot I was making something for other people to hear.” Then wrestling came calling again, and the album got put on hold. “OCW has a vicious schedule—pun intended,” she says with a wink. “But the feelings were still there, brewing. I had to finish it. Like, spiritually. I owed it to myself.” She pauses, then smiles like she’s about to get away with something. “I think y’all probably heard the first single by the time you read this,” she teases. “I can already hear the speculations. And y’all are probably right. Maybe not. I don’t know… haha.” Then, softer: “This album is a window into my story, my world. But I’m not here to say which song is about who. That’s not the point. The moment they’re out, they’re not mine anymore. They’re yours too.” Cherilyn is coming August 22. The first single, “idk why it got like that” is out now. CREDITS Photographer: Petra Collins Wardrobe: For Love & Lemons, Marc Jacobs, Courrèges, I'm Sorry by Petra Collins Makeup Artist: Tasha Reiko Brown Hair: César DeLeön Ramirêz Nails: Zola Ganzorigt Set Design: Marta Veludo Studio Creative Direction: Petra Collins Interview: Erica Campbell Location: Chateau Marmont, Room 34 Edited July 12 by Cheryl Stixx 3
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