By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

Former WWE Diva Maria Kanellis offered strong criticism of WWE related to yesterday's news on Mickie James and Katie Lea Burchill being released during an interview on maria-kanellis.org. Maria was in the middle of recording the interview when she was alerted to the news, leading to an instant reaction critical of WWE.

Maria, who was released from WWE in February, commented on Mickie James: "We were friends, but we kind of grew apart near the end. I don't know what her release revolved around, but I assume it was probably about the same thing that mine was. When you push back sometimes, people just let you go."

"I'm happy for her because I think that it's the best time in her life to get released because she does have an album coming out," Maria said.

Maria then criticized WWE for "dropping the ball" on her own storylines in WWE, as well as what she felt was WWE holding her back trying outside ventures, such as her new music project.

"When you can't hold someone underneath your thumb anymore, sometimes it's better just to let them go," Maria said. "I'm a very passionate person and I get bored so very easy. If you just make me do one thing all the time and you don't even let me do that one thing properly - they dropped the ball so many times on storylines."

Maria was also critical of WWE releasing Katie Lea Burchill, saying she doesn't understand why WWE fires some of the people they chose to fire on the roster.

"Also, Katie Lea. She was a tremendous asset to the Women's division," Maria said. "It seems to me, for some reason, they seem to fire the wrong person. That's really bad. I cannot believe they fired her."

Maria was asked if a heel turn was ever in the works after playing a babyface seemingly her entire career in WWE.

"I wanted to (turn heel). I tried to," Maria said. "I wanted to work with Edge at one point. I wanted to turn bad when I was working with Dolph (Ziggler). I wanted to do something different. I was so good and dumb for a while (laughs)."

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