Angela Lee tearfully announces retirement from MMA (VIDEO)

ONE Championship will not be the same without Angela Lee.

On Friday night the former champion officially announced she'd be relinquishing her title and retiring from the sport. The moment had been teased for some time but it wasn't official until now.

The retirement came during ONE Fight Night 14 where she made one last walk in Singapore.

“I’m here today to officially announce my retirement,” Lee said. “It has been an incredible eight years. I just want to say thank you to the fans, to ONE Championship, to Chatri (Sityodtong), to my teams, and to just everyone. There have been so many battles in and out of the cage.”

Lee made her debut at just 18 years old, going 8-0 to earn a shot at Mei Yamaguchi in 2018. She's widely considered one of the most well-known fighter under the ONE Championship banner.

“The last thing I want to say is this, to the fighters and to everyone out there watching right now. The greatest battle that we’ll ever face won’t be with an opponent standing in front of us. The greatest battle will be within ourselves. We all go through struggles, but we all fight. Each day, we’re victorious when we choose to rise up in the face of adversity. So thank you guys so much. I love you. Thank you.”

Why did Angela Lee retire?

Lee recently lost her younger sister Victoria to suicide and announced she herself had attempted suicide before a fight in 2017.

"It’s taken me a long time to get to this place, but I’ve now reached a point where I am comfortable and confident enough to speak the full truth," Lee wrote in the essay shared on The Players Tribune. "Six years ago, I tried to end my life. My car crash in November 2017 was not an accident. It was a suicide attempt."

Lee holds the record for longest-championship reign in ONE history at more the seven years. Her brother Christian Lee also fights for ONE Championship and holds titles in two divisions.

"It's just really tough because my sister was also a fighter, my whole family is fighters, my dad was our coach. And because everything was so, I guess, intertwined and connected that's one of the big factors [why] I'm stepping away, because it's just very difficult to go on," she told ESPN shortly after the announcement.

Prior to the announcement, Lee sat down with Stamp Fairtex and Ham Seo-hee to inform them that their scheduled interim title fight would instead be for the undisputed title. Fairtex won the fight.