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Today, on Maria Menounos' daytime show Better Together w/ Maria Menounos Brie and Nikki Bella, former WWE superstars and co-leads of TOTAL BELLS on E!, opened up John Cena's editorial hand in their new memoir, the real reason Nikki left him, and why Brie is still healing from her turbulent upbringing.
NIKKI REVEALS WHAT JOHN CENA CUT FROM THE MEMOIR!
"With John though, there wasn't even anything bad written...It was more beautiful things that were taken out.
LATER, she continued: "There was one sex story that I understood. It was great for him! I was kinda like, don't you want high fives on that!?...We were wild, and he was strong...so it was a great story."
"I remember, we danced, and I was like, whoa, someone hasn't touched me like that in like, six years! But I think too, Artem was the first man that I ever had to be vulnerable for. Like, not even with John or anyone was I ever so vulnerable for. But I had to depend on Artem to get me through this dance, to find the softer side of me...I had found this new Nicole...It kind of made me not want to put up with a lot of shit. So when I had to go back to my real life, and there were things that were not great, I was like, 'I'm not going to forget who I just became."...I didn't see Artem for so long until we were filming Bellas...I look back at that scene, and my eyes were like sparkling! And I was like, 'Oh, I forgot how sweet, sweet he was!' I was always just so afraid I was gonna get labeled 'the girl who fell in love on Dancing With The Stars, and left her fiance!'
NIKKI LEFT JOHN CENA SO HE WOULDN'T REGRET HAVING KIDS WITH HER IN THE FUTURE
"Overall, we did have such an incredible relationship, it was just two people that wanted two different lives. We were trying so hard to make it one. And, it was like, even in the end when he was willing to give me kids, I could just tell, it's not what we wanted. 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...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. And, it was like, even in the end when he was willing to give me kids, I could just tell, it's not what we wanted. 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...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."
BRIE "ISN'T FULLY HEALED" FROM HER VIOLENT UPBRINGING
"Based on experience, I haven't fully healed. I've definitely done a lot of healing, and a lot of healing that's made me a different person...but definitely, there's times that I see how I am when I'm alone with Bird in my house...or all of the sudden I walk into a garage by myself. I definitely will feel, almost, that trauma coming up again. And it does something to your body, but I don't know if you ever fully heal!"
NIKKI CAN'T FULLY MEND HER BROKEN RELATIONSHIP WITH FATHER
"Even with my dad, like, we have mended our relationship, but I can't ever have that dad-daughter relationship. That will never be the same. Um, and I'm happy that we've re-connected, but I just can tell like, you have scars! You can heal, but they're there. And they're hard to forget. I just know that's how that will always be."
THE BELLAS REFLECT ON LATE WWE STAR SHAD GASPARD
BRIE: "Oh my gosh. Shad was one of the sweetest human beings. you know, at the time that we knew him, we were all on Smackdown. At a time two, when women were getting a lot. But, I'll say, Shad was one of those guys who was always so sweet and respetful to women, always made the Divas feel good. He always brought this light into a room.
NIKKI: "You never him not smile. You never saw him angry. He literally always lit up the room. Shad was just one of those guys, til the very end, when people were still around him, like he would still stop by the WWE offices!"
BRIE: "We all quarantined for 14 days. Could have NO contact with the outside world. It was, such strict rules and regulations, and then once we all did the 14 days quarantine, then we all had to take Coronavirus tests. And then once those tests came in, then, we we all are together, but still quarantined, like all isolated."
MARIA: "With the crew?"
NIKKI: "Yeah! Yeah."
BRIE: "It's actually nice because we get to get to talk to other humans...I sometimes feel bad for them [the crew] because they have to be in protective gear all day: like masks, gloves, sanitizer. We don't have to be in masks but we all check our temperatures."
THE REAL REASON NIKKI CAME OUT ABOUT HER RAPES
NIKKI: "The #MeToo movement is when Bri and I really talked about it again, because I put it away for so long. And I remember telling Bri, 'I'd do anything to have these women be around when it happened to me" because I probably would've ended up talking about it to my mom, someone. I would've gotten help, but instead, we didn't have that. And it was like after we got this opportunity to write the memoir, it was just like, maybe I need to help be the role model for people, and not be a victim to it. I don't want any high school girl to waste 20 years of her life holding on to what I held on to. I want her to break free.
LATER, BRIE offered: "Even when I was talking to Nikki during the #MeToo movement, I was like, 'Hashtag it! Tweet it! I've got your back. It's time to tell your story.' And she still didn't have enough courage at the time...and it was sad for me to see someone who was innocent still not have the courage to speak about it. And THAT's when we knew we had to talk about it in the book. "
NIKKI CARRIED THE TRAUMA OF HER RAPES "INTO HER 30s," WITH A "VISION YOU DON'T EVER NOT SEE"
"I held on to that for over 20 years. And like, very few people knew, and it was something that affected me so much, I was in and out of therapy all the time, and by choice. I would go pay for it because I didn't want to tell my parents...I always blamed myself. I carried so much guilt and shame for so long, like, 'Nicole, you put yourself in that situation! Why did you have to be there! Why did you go to the party! You knew it wasn't right!' and I carried that up until my 30s, and, it really took our ghostwriter to say the word 'rapes,' because I would even refuse to say the word! I couldn't even, like, say it, because it would put me back in such a moment. It's just a vision you don't ever not see."
THE BELLAS SAY 2006 DIVA SEARCH WAS "MEAN & "AWFUL", TO POINT NIKKI THOUGHT SHE BEING PUNKED
BRIE: "When we walked out, I'll never forget we looked at each other like, what just happened."
NIKKI: "I got mad at Bri because she's the one that really encouraged me to go, and here I thought I was gonna go fight girls, and then I got, like, torn apart, and I looked at her like 'what did you bring me to, like, am I getting punked?' That was so mean. It was awful."
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