“It was really difficult to just try to live life” - Angela Lee says Victoria’s passing still haunts her to this day

There really is no way to properly move on from the loss of a loved one, and Angela Lee can attest to that.

The inaugural ONE women’s atomweight MMA world champion admitted in an interview with The Aloha Hour that her younger sister Victoria’s untimely passing still gnaws at her to this day.

Victoria died in December 2022, a tragedy that shook not just the Lee family but the entire MMA community as a whole.

Lee said:

“So, this year has been very different. Last year my family had a big loss, and we lost my sister Victoria and she took her life. She was 18 years old, and it was really difficult to just try to live life after what's happened, and with my dad being our coach she was one of my main training partners, you know. And it was just, nothing was the same.”

Following Victoria’s passing, Lee and her younger brother Christian decided to take an indefinite leave from competition.

Christian is the reigning ONE lightweight and welterweight MMA world champion, and it’s still unclear when he will return to the Circle to defend his belts.

Lee, meanwhile, ultimately decided to call it a career. She announced her retirement and relinquished her hold of the ONE women’s atomweight MMA world title during ONE Fight Night 14 in September this year.

Stamp Fairtex, who challenged Lee for the gold in March 2022, wound up becoming the new ONE women’s atomweight MMA world champion after a third-round knockout win against Ham Seo Hee in the card’s main event.

Lee, meanwhile, has turned her focus on leading the non-profit organization FightStory.

Watch Lee's entire interview below: