In a world of neon dreams and flat-back landings, Cassie Lee never just walked to the ring—she glided through the chaos, a high-kicking silhouette made of rhinestones and resolve. She came from Westfields Sports High, a Sydney school churning out athletic freaks and underdog miracles like an assembly line with heart. Long before she had the name Peyton Royce or the shimmer of WrestleMania lights in her eyes, she was just a girl with a Guerrero obsession and enough ambition to give gravity the finger.
Back then, she was KC Cassidy, working the independent slog across Australia like a jazz musician hustling bar gigs for rent and respect. Tagging with Robbie Eagles one week, taking on Jessie McKay the next, she was learning her bumps in cold gyms and tiny halls, often to crowds who were just there to get out of the rain. Wrestling in the PWWA was not glamorous. It was duct-tape dreams and ten-dollar payoffs. But it was hers.
She took that passion across oceans—Shimmer, Shine, Riot City, wherever the work lived—and eventually landed at the feet of Lance Storm in Calgary, Alberta. Storm was a man of discipline, a technician without a twitch of wasted motion. And Cassie, a dancer by origin, took to his teachings like ink to skin.
But WWE was the dragon every indie darling wanted to slay or ride, depending on the day. And in 2015, the company offered her a saddle. It was in NXT that Cassie became Peyton Royce, a name that sounded like it came from a perfume commercial or a Vegas lounge singer—but hell, it worked. She was assigned to be pretty, punchy, and eventually, iconic.
Then came Billie Kay. Best friends in the ring and out, the duo clicked like brass knuckles meeting glass jaws. As The Iconic Duo, they were the punchline and the uppercut. The comic relief that could also wrestle your ass into the mat. They weren’t just divas or wrestlers or sports entertainers—they were storm warnings in glitter boots.
The name change to The IIconics came with a main roster call-up, and on April 10, 2018, they made their presence known by beating the tar out of Charlotte Flair like two mob wives catching the mistress. A week later, they pinned Asuka and Becky Lynch in a win that made the world blink twice.
They were funny. Sharp. A little unhinged. Cassie brought the snap suplexes, the scissor kicks, and that perfect sneer. It was all theater, yes, but damn if she didn’t make you feel like she meant it.
They won the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania 35, and it was the kind of moment that makes lifers out of little girls. The IIconics were finally on top, the misfit pageant queens now holding court over the division.
But wrestling is a meat grinder with memory loss. Champions become afterthoughts in the blink of a Vince. The belts were lost, the momentum flatlined, and WWE did what it always does with bright things—it dulled them down. The IIconics were split in 2020, not by storyline but by some bureaucratic fever dream of “fresh starts.” Watching them get split up was like watching a great band forced to go solo in the middle of their encore.
Cassie tried. Teamed with Lacey Evans, worked angles that never got past the brainstorming stage, and then on April 15, 2021, WWE tossed her and Billie Kay out with the trash. Future endeavors, they called it. That bland corporate exorcism.
But Cassie Lee isn’t the type to stay dead for long. You can’t kill the glow in someone who’s been chasing stardom since she was nine years old and living off Eddie Guerrero tapes. She resurrected herself as part of The IInspiration in Impact Wrestling, winning the Knockouts Tag Titles at Bound for Glory like two ghosts finally getting revenge on the living.
For a while, they made Impact feel bigger than it was. Like the house got a new paint job and the neighborhood took notice. But wrestling was never going to be her forever. The migraines started—figurative and literal—and she had another dream tugging at her sleeve.
She dabbled in acting. Got cast in The Charisma Killers playing a character with just enough sass to match her on-screen sparkle. She became a podcaster too, hosting Off Her Chops with Billie—a strange mix of comedy, chaos, and catchphrases, like Lucy and Ethel with piledrivers.
Meanwhile, her personal life took center stage. She married Canadian wrestler Shawn Spears (Tye Dillinger, for the old-school NXT fans), and they made a family that wasn’t just made of championship belts and road cases. Two sons, Austin and Harley, now dominate her Instagram feed—less bump cards, more bedtime stories.
She didn’t burn out. She glowed out. In an industry that demands blood for approval, she walked away on her own two high-heeled feet, no limp, no bitterness, just style.
Cassie Lee remains one of those rare unicorns in pro wrestling—a performer who could pull tears and laughter in the same promo, who looked like a diva and hit like a bruiser. She was charisma wrapped in spandex, balancing the edge between satire and sincerity. Even now, she’s still got the timing of a stand-up comic and the killer instinct of a fox in a cage.
You might say wrestling was just the first act. And in the words of some washed-up poet who once drank with demons in a rent-controlled apartment—sometimes the first act just teaches you how to take the punch. Cassie learned. And now she dances on.
Even if she never laces the boots again, the shimmer she left on the canvas won’t fade. She wasn’t just iconic. She was essential.