Nikki Bella and John Cena shared one of WrestleMania’s most emotional moments when they got engaged, but their eventual breakup was “traumatising” to the retired Divas Champion.
Due to their high-profile lifestyles, the relationship between Nikki Bella and John Cena was publicised through Total Divas and Total Bellas. WrestleMania 33 also featured the pair in action together, defeating The Miz and Maryse in an intergender tag team affair.
Post-match came one of ‘Mania’s most memorable and emotional moments, when John Cena got down on one knee, proposing to Nikki Bella in a gleeful WrestleMania moment.
The couple split the following year, with Nikki calling off their engagement. After what was described by her as “much time and soul-searching along and together”, the couple amicably parted ways in the summer of 2018, a moment that Nikki Bella found “traumatising” as she told ET:
“I think a lot of women get into this situation when it’s like, ‘I love this person, but I don’t know if it’s right for my life,’ and that’s a hard thing. Sometimes we meet amazing people, but we’re just meant to live a different life. (…) I just got this feeling so deep in my gut of, like, ‘I need to walk away.’ And no one thought I would, but it was hitting me so hard. Even though it’s painful and even traumatizing, I just knew it was right.”
The former couple have both since found ‘the one’; John Cena is married to product manager Shay Shariatzadeh, while Nikki Bella is currently engaged to professional dancer Artem Chigvintsev.
Both currently serve as Ambassadors for WWE. John Cena last wrestled on WWE programming at last year’s SummerSlam, losing to Roman Reigns before participating in one dark match, while Nikki Bella competed as recently as January as she entered the women’s Royal Rumble match.