So I’m surprised, when I hop on the phone with her, to hear a far from intimidating voice come out of Rousey. She is bubbly, candid, approachable, girlie even. She greets me with a friendly “what’s up!” and talks a mile a minute. Recently, thanks to supporting roles in Hollywood blockbusters like Furious 7 and the upcoming Entourage, plusa book tour for her just-released memoir My Fight/Your Fight, she’s also been devoting a surprising amount of time to getting dolled up for appearances and shoots, like this one for Yahoo Style.“It’s kind of cool that fashion is becoming a part [of my career],” says Rousey, who describes her personal style as “if Joan Jett lived in Venice Beach and loved surfing. And occasionally had to do a red carpet.” It is, however, the last thing she saw coming. “When I was in high school, I was so scared to try to dress nice because I thought if I tried something and it didn’t look good, it was worse than not trying at all,” she says.
Confidence, when it comes to her appearance, has been a long road for Rousey, who was bullied growing up. “Back then, if you did judo, people thought you were a dork,” she says. Kids made fun of her for being into the sport and teased her about her “big arms” (which sounds, to this writer, like an unwise thing to do—unless you’re looking for a black-eye). Rousey, though, swears she never used her considerable judo skills to fight back. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, if someone tried to hit me I would have,” she says. “But it was just verbal so, what can you do? I learned to deal with it.”