Bellator Ring Girl Jade Bryce: 'I Got on a Plane by Myself and Went to Africa'

As much as we tend to believe that our lives suck sometimes, there are individuals out there that are living in way worse conditions than we can even begin to fathom.

Sure, you might have bad days but at least you have a place to live, at least you are getting three square meals a day, at least you have clothes on your back.

Then, of course, you have your extra luxuries such as cell phones, iPods, laptops, and maybe even an easy bake oven for all you hefty children out there—if they even still make those.

Come to think of it, when you have all of that it’s kind of silly to complain about how terrible your life is when there are children in Africa who have nothing. They don’t have clothing or food or a comfortable bed or clean water or a sturdy roof over their head.

Legitimately, they have nothing and a lot of these children are forced at a very young age to fight as soldiers in what is known as an Invisible War.

An evil piece of trash that isn’t even worthy of living up a warthogs anus named Joseph Kony and his LRA army have abducted an estimated 66,000 children to fight for them.

Not many people here in the United States are aware of the current situation in Africa but when blonde bombshell and current ring girl for the Bellator Fighting Championships, Jade Bryce, became aware of this she knew she had to do something.

Here is her story.

“When I first went to Africa, I went by myself without an organization. I saw a documentary by Invisible Children when I was about 21 and it just struck my life. [Ever since watching that] I had a hard time falling asleep knowing about what was going on over there and knowing what the children go through,” Bryce told Mitch Ciccarelli on MMA Mass Debation Radio.

“I didn’t really know what I could do [to help], just being this little girl from Texas but what I started doing was showing the film at places like Starbucks and taking donations and selling things such as merchandise like hats or shirts that I would make.”

“I would raise anywhere from 700 to 3,000 dollars and, even though it was hard work to do by myself, at the end of the event I would always feel like ‘gosh, this money wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t worked so hard to do the event’ so it started to become something that was very fulfilling.”

Invisible Children is a movement that seeks to end the conflict in Africa and bring the child soldiers home. According to their website, they seek to rebuild schools, educate future leaders and provide jobs in Northern Uganda.

Bryce was busting her incredibly well shaped booty to do all that she could to help make a difference in their cause. She eventually decided to visit the children herself in Africa on a trip that would emotionally change her life.

“I got on a plane by myself and I went to Africa. From the moment I landed from the moment I left, it was just such an emotional experience falling in love with these children that were dying of hunger or had HIV from their parents or were just in so much pain,” Bryce said.

“When I came back, my friend Lewis [Myers] and I started CRASH and I also have been working very closely with an organization called Hello Somebody and right now we are funding meals in Somalia. What I’m doing is when people make a donation I’ll give them an autograph photo from my Fight Magazine spread.”

“We’ve provided about 25,000 meals to Somalia in the last month, Hello Somebody has. I’m very passionate about many causes but really, any child in need whether it’s in Texas or Africa or China or anywhere, it just really rips my heart.”

Bryce felt like she was truly making a positive difference and she was, and she still is, but one incident in particular was immensely difficult for her to deal with.

“I had pulled a child out of a bush who had been strangled by his mother because she just wanted to put him out of his pain of starvation so she killed him because she didn’t want him to be in pain anymore and that was something that was so hard for me to see.”

Everything that Bryce is doing in her modeling and acting career, it’s all so that one day she can be in a position where she can help causes such as CRASH, Invisible Children and Hello Somebody on larger scales than she is currently able to do right now.

Alongside the beautiful Mercedes Terrell (soon to be Mercedes Ciccarelli), Bryce can be seen on MTV 2 during Bellator Fighting Championships programming.

She was hired by Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney at the start of season four due to a recommendation from a Spanish announcer.

“It’s been a dream come true. I’ve been a huge fan of MMA for the past four or five years now and it’s really been the only sport that I keep up with. I absolutely love it and passionately talk about any chance I can get and I never dreamed that one day I would be working in the industry,” Bryce said.

“I started modeling a year and a half ago and in some blog, I can’t even remember which blog it was but I was asked which sport was my favorite and I said ‘MMA all the way’ and listed a ton of my favorite fighters. Paul Thatcher from Fight Magazine, who is now one of my really close friends, contacted me and asked to shoot for Fight Magazine and I was ecstatic.”

“So I shot with them and a fighter by the name of Nick “The Ghost” Gonzales picked it up in a barber shop, read it and saw that the favorite fighters that I had listed were all in Bellator. His manager, Manny [Rodriguez], is the Bellator Spanish commentator so Manny contacted me and let me know that they were looking for a blonde ring girl and after I interviewed with them I got the position.”

With the UFC recently reaching a multi-year agreement with FOX Sports, rumors have been circulating media outlets that Bellator will fill the now empty MMA void on Spike TV.

Bryce has heard those rumors, and while isn’t sure if the switch in networks is indeed going to happen, believes it would be a huge deal for Bellator if it did.

“I don’t think anything has been confirmed yet but it does look like we are going to [sign with Spike TV]. I think that would be amazing because not everyone has MTV 2 but we’ve been absolutely blessed to be on MTV 2 and it would be just as big of a blessing to switch over to Spike,” Bryce said.

“I hope it happens, it sounds like it is but I usually don’t find out where we’re going until I get my plane ticket so I’m not as up to date on whether or not we’re switching to Spike but I do hope that we are and I have heard that it’s in the works.”

Bellator season five is set to air on MTV 2 beginning this Saturday, September 10. The main card will feature four fights of the first round of their welterweight tournament featuring notables such as former UFC fighter Ben Saunders, Douglas Lima, Dan Hornbuckle and Steve Carl.

Not one to shy away from making predictions, the lovely Bryce tells us who she thinks is taking the tournament. She also gives a bold pick for the organization’s next lightweight title fight which is set to headline Bellator 54.

“I do pick Ben Saunders [to win the welterweight tournament] and I also think Michael Chandler is going to win the lightweight belt even though Eddie Alvarez is everyone’s favorite. I really think that Chandler is going to win that belt,” Bryce said.

“Every one of Chandler’s fights in Bellator so far, me and Jimmy Smith the commentator, we tell each other who we think is going to win and then that person has to buy dinner after the fight and I always win and I’ve picked Chandler every single time. For some reason, he never picks Chandler and I always end up saying ‘I told you so’. Everyone seems to be picking Alvarez but I know that I am going to be saying ‘I told you so’ again.”

To listen to the latest episode of MMA Mass Debation Radio featuring Jade Bryce, Brittney Palmer, and Tracy Lee. Click the link below.

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Mitch Ciccarelli is the sexiest columnist in MMA and the undisputed sexyweight champion of the world. Enough said.

Follow Ciccarelli on Twitter @mitchciccarelli.