Not having it! Nikki Bella fought WWE star Bayley at WrestleMania 37 after the announcer made a comment about Nikki’s ex-fiancé, John Cena. While speaking with Hulk Hogan and Titus O’Neil, Bayley was interrupted by Nikki and her sister, Brie Bella, who retired from the WWE in 2019.
“I don’t know what you two twin idiots are doing over here looking like Elmo, OK? I don’t know if you heard, but John Cena is not here tonight,” Bayley, 31, said during the Sunday, April 11, special. Immediately, Nikki, 37, smacked the microphone out of her hand before she and Brie, 37, proved they’ve still got some serious wrestling skills.
Of course, the bit was all in good fun! In fact, Nikki and John, 43, who were together for six years before calling it quits in May 2018, are on good terms. The Total Bellas star even gave her former flame a sweet shout-out during her WWE Hall of Fame acceptance speech on March 31. “John, thank you for teaching me a lot about this business and truly helping me find my fearless side,” she gushed.
Since ending their engagement, Nikki has opened up several times about what went wrong between them. Ultimately, she and John couldn’t agree on starting a family together. “We wanted different things,” Nikki, who shares 8-month-old son Matteo with fiancé Artem Chigvintsev, recalled during an interview with Bravo’s Lisa Vanderpump in December 2020.
“I really wanted to be a mom and he didn’t want to be a father. In the end, he was like, ‘Look, I will give you a kid,’ but I knew deep down in his heart it’s not what he wanted,” she continued. “And I was so afraid that years down the road he would just have regrets and resent me for making him a father.”
John’s decision to not have children is something he expressed to Nikki long before their split. “I know I cannot handle raising a child. And just because everyone else is happy with children doesn’t mean that’s how I have to live,” the actor revealed to Rolling Stone in 2016.
“I’ve been upfront about this. I just have things I need to get done. It’s not negotiable. We’ve been to therapy over it. I don’t think it will ever be over with. I’m stubborn as f–k and extremely selfish, as well,” John continued. “I don’t want kids; I don’t want marriage. That’s me just saying, ‘Hey, this is my life and this is how I’m going to live.'”
His stance on marriage, however, has changed. John and wife Shay Shariatzadeh tied the knot at a private ceremony in October 2020.