Julia Reilly (Claire Lynch) Passed Away This Past April

Former TNA personality Claire Lynch, real name Julia Reilly, passed away this past April, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Dave Meltzer reported that Reilly is currently believed to have passed away from natural causes after her body was discovered at her home in Orlando, Florida. Meltzer reported that Reilly had failed to show up for a scheduled event leading to a wellness check being performed and her lifeless body being found.

Reilly is most known in wrestling history for her brief stint in TNA/Impact Wrestling portraying the infamous Claire Lynch character. During her time in TNA, Lynch was involved in a storyline angle with AJ Styles in 2012 claiming that Styles had an affair with her and she was pregnant with his child. This storyline was quickly dropped after Reilly’s real identity was exposed online leading to her getting harassed by wrestling fans and her quitting the company.

Meltzer reported that another reason for the dropped storyline was due to Reilly had felt it would hurt her acting career to be associated with it.

Outside of her brief time in wrestling, Reilly had worked as an actress and portrayed the Olive Oyl character at Universal when she was picked by TNA to portray the role of Lynch. Following her stint in TNA, Reilly never listed her work in TNA on her resumes due to her not wanting potential employers or casting directors to research her and come across her work for the company.