Diana Joyce Hart (born October 8, 1963)[2] is a Canadian-American writer, model, valet and wrestling personality.[3] She is the youngest daughter of CanadianwrestlingpromoterStu Hart and was the second to last child born to Stu and his wife Helen.[4] She is best known for her several appearances forStampede Wrestling andWWE often with her brothersBret andOwen Hart as well as her husbandDavey Boy Smith, and for her book,Under the Mat.[5]
Hart is ofGreek descent through her maternal grandmother[7][8] andIrish through her maternal grandfather, long-distance runnerHarry Smith.[9][10]Her father was mainly ofUlster Scot descent but also hadScottish andEnglish ancestry.[11][12] Hart is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States thanks to her mother Helen, who was born in New York.[13][14]
One of Hart's first wrestling appearances was in her father's promotion,Stampede Wrestling, in August 1989, during a heated rivalry between her husbandDavey Boy Smith and his storyline brotherJohnny Smith, in which her brotherOwen Hart also got involved after Johnny's disrespect towards the Hart family.[15]
She was also involved in the 1999 incarnation of Stampede Wrestling. In a storyline where she refused to put the belt around the waist of a wrestler who had insulted her family, she was then attacked but her son Harry intervened and chased the attackers off.[16]
Two years later at the1994 SummerSlam, she sat at ringside beside her husband, who had just returned to the WWF, to watch her brothers Bret and Owen wrestle each other inside a steel cage for theWWF Championship.[19] In 1995, she accompanied her husband to the ring for his WWF Championship match against Bret atIn Your House: Season's Beatings, which Davey lost.[20]
In April 1996, the WWF began a storyline where Hart claimed that she was sexually assaulted byShawn Michaels backstage atIn Your House: Good Friends, Better Enemies in an attempt to play mind games with Michaels as her husband prepared to challenge him for the WWF Championship atIn Your House: Beware of Dog.[21] Theangle culminated with an in-ring promo on an episodeMonday Night Raw where Hart slapped Michaels, leading to a brawl between Michaels and Bulldog. When their match at In Your House led to a draw, a rematch was signed forKing of the Ring 1996, which the Bulldog ultimately lost.[22][23] After that, the storyline was dropped.
She later appeared on WWE television in May 2002, when she was interviewed for aWWE Confidential piece on the recent death of her ex-husband.[25] AtWrestleMania XXVI, Hart returned as a lumberjack for the No Holds Barred Match between Bret Hart and Mr. McMahon. McMahon had paid the Hart Family to screw Bret in their match. However, the tables were turned and the Hart Family sided with Bret and helped him win the match.[26] She also appeared at her father Stu's Hall of Fame induction in 2010 together with all her living siblings.[27] She also appeared alongside her children to accept the posthumous Hall of Fame induction of her ex-husband as part of the class of 2020 (ceremony held in 2021).[28]
Hart has also worked forHart Legacy Wrestling, which is managed by her relatives and their associates, she appeared on the first everHLW event in 2013 together with all her living siblings except Bret[29][30] and the Hopes & Ropes charity fundraiser in 2016 where she signed copies of her bookCauliflower Heart: A Romantic Wrestler.[31] She also works with gym training for younger students and promotional work for the shows.[32]
After the death of her younger brother,Owen Hart, in awrestling accident, Hart became very outspoken about the wrestling industry and wrote a controversial book entitledUnder the Mat: Inside Wrestling's Greatest Family, which discussed alleged secrets of the Hart family.[33] Owen's widow,Martha, intended to sue Hart over the book, which caused the book to be removed from publication.[34][35] It was later claimed by Hart that the stories that were printed in the book were completely twisted and changed from how she had written them originally, and she was deeply hurt by the controversy that it caused her family because of it. Her brotherBret has questioned her claim that she was not aware of the book's content before publication.[36] Hart has disowned the book and stated that she wishes it had never been written.[37][38]
In 2015 Hart stated that she was intending to write a trilogy of romance novels. The book series is entitledCauliflower Heart and revolves around a woman born into a wrestling family. The first book entitledCauliflower Heart: A Romantic Wrestler, which was released in 2014.[39][40][41] Hart received a silver medal award by theReader's Favorite in the category Sports Fiction for the book.[42][43] It was also a runner-up at theHollywood Book Festival in the category genre-based books.[44] The second part of the series is entitledCauliflower Heart: Wrestling With Life and was released on October 7, 2016.[45][46][47] The third and final part was released on February 17 in 2017 and is calledCauliflower Heart: She Who Laughs Last.[48][49]
Hart worked as a model for 20 years in Calgary.[50]
Hart has appeared in several documentaries, includingHitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows,Surviving the Dungeon: The Legacy of Stu Hart andHart & Soul: The Hart Family Anthology.[51] In 2015 Hart appeared alongside her brotherRoss onShaw TV to speak about their father Stu's hundredth birthday.[52] Hart appears in the documentaryHart Still Beating, which is about her brother Smith and nephewMatt.[53] Hart is the subject of the 2017 shoot documentaryQueen of Harts: The Diana Hart Story.[54]
Hart metDavey Boy Smith when he was training under her father in 1981. They married on October 7, 1984, a day before her 21st birthday. The couple had two children together,Harry (born on August 2, 1985) and Georgia (born September 26, 1987). They remained married until 2000, when the couple filed for divorce, and her sonHarry followed his father and mother into professional wrestling.[55] At the time of their split in 2000 they were not yet formally divorced, even though they both had begun new relationships with other people.[56]
Hart has in her autobiography expressed interest in family research.[57]
In 2015 Hart sold the rights to the British Bulldog wrestling trademark to her son Harry.[58][unreliable source]
,Wrestlingdata
