Who is Tammy ‘Sunny’ Sytch, the WWE legend and adult film star sentenced to 17 years in prison?

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) legend Tammy ‘Sunny’ Sytch was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison for her role in the death of a 75-year-old man in a March 2022 car crash.

Why has Sytch been sent to prison?

Julian LaFrancis Lasseter was killed when Sytch, who was later found to be three and a half times over the legal alcohol limit, drove into the back of his vehicle at a stoplight in Ormond Beach, Florida.

Sytch initially pleaded not guilty to a number of charges, including driving under the influence and causing the death of another person, before changing her plea to no contest in August this year.

What did Sytch say at sentencing?

Speaking in court after being sentenced, the 50-year-old said she was haunted “every second of every day” by having caused Lasseter’s death.

“When I was 16 years old, I decided to apply to college and study biology and pre-med, because I wanted to be a doctor,” she said. “I wanted to help people through their pain and suffering, but more importantly, I wanted to heal people.

“The first line of the Hippocratic Oath reads: I will do no harm. On March 25, 2022, I did the opposite of that. I did harm to someone else, and my entire being was crushed.”

Sytch added: “I have done something horrible, but I am so much more than the worst that I have done.

“I try to think about the good I’ve done, because when I sit alone thinking about what I did to the Lasseter family that tragic day, from a stupid decision, I feel the regret and remorse deep inside my soul […].

“I know my words are not enough, but please know that I think about [Lasseter and his family] every day. Every second of every day.”

Who is Tammy ‘Sunny’ Sytch?

Sytch gained fame in the 1990s as a wrestling manager and personality - and occasional wrestler - in WWE, then called the Worldwide Wrestling Foundation (WWF).

Known by her ring name ‘Sunny’, she joined forces with long-time boyfriend Chris Candido to form the team the Bodydonnas, before also managing the Godwinns and the Smoking Gunns. All three teams won WWF’s Tag Team Championship.

Sytch, whose catchphrase during her career in wrestling was “Sunny gets what Sunny wants”, was inducted into WWE’s Hall of Fame in 2011.

Rejected six-figure sum from Playboy

In the late 1990s, she claimed that she had turned down $150,000 to do a naked photo shoot for the adult magazine Playboy, telling the TV show Off the Record: “My father would roll over in his grave if I ever did it, my mother would never speak to me again, and I was raised in a way that things are still sacred.

“It took me about three minutes to decide that no, that’s not for me.”

However, Sytch later posed nude for Wrestling Vixxens, and in 2016 starred in the adult movie Sunny Side Up for the film company Vivid Entertainment. In 2020, she created an OnlyFans account to upload adult video content.

“Huge string of mistakes”

Over the past decade, Sytch has had several run-ins with the law. According to TMZ, indeed, she had been arrested at least six times for driving under the influence before the crash that killed Lasseter.

Among her spells behind bars, she spent a year in prison between 2019 and 2020 after reportedly driving drunk the wrong way down a one-way street, while her licence was suspended.

Speaking at her sentencing, Sytch attributed her downward spiral in recent years to the impact of Candido’s 2005 death at the age of just 33.

“He was tragically taken from this world, and I hated myself for not being able to change things for him, to heal him and care for him, and keep him safe,” she said.

“What followed was a huge string of mistakes that I should have learned from.”

In 2016, Sytch released the tell-all autobiography A Star Shattered: The Rise & Fall & Rise of Wrestling Diva Tammy “Sunny” Sytch.