Due to the financial reversals caused by her retirement from films, as well as the Great Depression, Naldi filed for bankruptcy in 1932. She went back to the stage with "Queer People" and "The Firebird" in 1933. The press had been critical of her weight since 1924, but reviews of her appearances in both plays were especially harsh this time around — so harsh in fact that Naldi filed suit against one paper in 1934 for $500,000. The suit was dismissed in 1938.