A class act. Nikki Bella has no problem praising her ex-fiancé John Cena for the role he played in her successful WWE career. The Total Bellas star opened up about why she decided to thank John during her WWE Hall of Fame indictment speech in March.
“I didn’t think anything about it because when you’re in those moments at the Hall of Fame, you really look at your career and you’re like, ‘Who was there, who helped me along the way?’” Nikki, 37, recalled during a Saturday, June 5, interview with Entertainment Tonight.
“So much of the time people will talk about themselves, and for me, I look at my career and I know that wasn’t just because of me,” the Dancing With the Stars alum continued. “It was Brie [Bella], it was The Bella Army, it was the producers, all the people that believed in me and John was a big part of that.”
Nikki and the Blockers actor, 44, were together for six years before calling it quits in 2018. The former flames broke up in April, just one month prior to their scheduled nuptials. Even so, it’s clear the E! personality harbors no ill will toward John.
“He really helped me be that fearless side and showed me a part of that world that I never saw before,” she gushed. “I think just because you have breakups or whatever it may be, doesn’t mean you can’t thank those people and just truly be so grateful for the help that they had.”
In the years since their split, Nikki, who is now engaged to fiancé Artem Chigvintsev, with whom she shares son Matteo, has detailed why she and John couldn’t make their relationship work.
“We wanted different things,” Nikki admitted during a December 2020 interview with Lisa Vanderpump. “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. And I was so afraid that years down the road he would just have regrets and resent me for making him a father.”
John has since moved on with wife Shay Shariatzadeh. Life & Style confirmed that the Massachusetts native and the engineer got married in a private ceremony in Tampa, Florida, in October 2020.