Dr. Drew says late WWE star Chyna may have suffered from identity disorder

Dr. Drew Pinsky has shared some insights into the death of late WWE legend Joanie ‘Chyna’ Laurer ahead of an upcoming documentary about the wrestling superstar.

Drew, who briefly treated Joanie on the VH1 reality series Celebrity Rehab in 2008, says he tried to help the 45-year-old before her death from an accidental overdose in 2016.

‘I loved Joanie, Joanie was a dear woman,’ the famed physician told the Unpopular podcast this week.

‘In the documentary you’ll see some of the stuff that was happening at the end, she spent months in a locked unit in Japan,’ he said.

‘She was literally in a locked psychiatric unit for three months… because she was found very psychotic.

‘Then she came back here [to America] and somebody started wanting to do some sort of reality stuff with her. I was trying desperately to get her to a psychiatrist,’ he continued.

‘I believe she went to this psychiatrist I was telling her to go see, and then somebody gave her opiates and benzodiazepine, which is the deadly combination.’

He added: ‘Then all of a sudden Joanie was gone.’

Sharing further insights into the late star, Drew said she was tough to work with because she often had her walls up and was resistant to treatment. 

‘Joanie was very difficult to work with… she was a very tender, dear person, but very rigid and very difficult to get to engage in any kind of meaningful whatever.

‘I had a bunch of encounters with her out in the world where I’d just sort of run across her, and I would have these thoughts, like, “god, she is so different in this context.” I wonder if she had a multiple personality disorder?’ 

Drew explained that his suspicions were further fuelled after speaking to Joanie’s mother, who agreed. 

‘I had the opportunity to talk to her mother recently and she thought the same thing, because the changes from one thing to the next…’ he said.

‘She was all kinds of different things in all kinds of different contexts. Her mother was like, “oh my god that makes so much sense.” She may have had a dissociative disorder of some type.’ 

Chyna’s career as pro-wrestling’s first female superstar took off several years after she graduated college in 1992.

The 5-foot-10-inch beauty was famed for taking on both men and women in the ring and later went on to pose for the cover of Playboy.

But her career as a wrestler came crashing down in 2001 and she struggled to remain in the spotlight. 

Days before her body was found in her apartment in April, 2016, Joanie appeared disjointed as she filmed herself walking around her apartment in a 13 minute video she posted online.

She drank a breakfast smoothie and sang to the camera.

Police found her body several days later in her apartment. They were responding to a 911 call from a concerned friend who said she had failed to answer her phone in recent days.

A documentary about her ground-breaking career and tragic death is currently in the works.