Nikki Bella opened up about her relationship with John Cena, and why she decided to end things after six years together. The Total Bellas star spoke to Maria Menounos on her podcast Better Together — which you can listen to here — and got candid about the difficult breakup. The WWE Hall of Famer she called it quits over their differing stance on family and children. “Overall, we did have such an incredible relationship, it was just two people that wanted two different lives,” she said. “We were trying so hard to make it one.”
The couple dated for nearly six years before their breakup in 2018, and struggled to find common ground when it came to their future as parents. 43-year-old John wasn’t interested in having children, while Nikki, 36, who is now pregnant with current partner Artem Chigvintsev, was vocal about her desire to be a mom. “Even in the end when he was willing to give me kids, I could just tell, it’s not what we wanted,” she said of John agreeing to have his vasectomy reversed. “And that’s really, like, you know, what pushed me in the end, was like, if I’m going to force someone to be a father.”
She added, “What if he looks at you down the road and just regrets everything, and then you have this child and you’ve built this life. Is that what you want? And I remember thinking: it’s not what I want.” After officially breaking things off in July 2018, she began dating Artem, her former Dancing with the Stars partner one year later. Now, the pair are expecting their first child together!
Nikki is roughly seven weeks away from her due date, and she’s expected to give birth right behind her also-pregnant twin sister, Brie Bella, 36. Brie is further along, but only just (“30 weeks,” she shared on May 18 while posing nearly naked). Being so close to their due dates, it’s time for the twins to think of possible baby names, and they shared their thoughts on this EXCLUSIVELY with HollywoodLife. Brie and husband Daniel Bryan (real name Bryan Danielson) decided “a long time ago [we] have to do all B names because Bryan’s whole family’s all B’s. He’s Brian, I’m Brianna, and now we have Birdie (their 3-year-old daughter) our baby has to have a ‘B’ name.”