Nikki Bella Reveals Her Greatest Fear About Her Former Relationship With John Cena

It's been three years since John Cena proposed to Nikki Bella in front of tens of thousands of people at WrestleMania 33, and two years since the couple broke off their engagement weeks before their planned wedding. The pair have since moved on — Cena is in a new relationship, while Bella is engaged to Artem Chigvintsev and has a baby on the way — but Bella admitted during a recent episode of The Bellas Podcast that she fears the fallout from her breakup will follow her forever.

"What was tough about that was it came out before a season went on air so people thought that it was a publicity stunt. Like it was fake just to get people to tune in," Bella told Hannah Ann Sluss from The Bachelor.

"I'm always constantly going to Brie, like, 'Am I ever gonna get away from this?' And Artem will deal will stuff, and I even know that my ex-fiancé will still deal with stuff," she continued. "And it's hard. It's been, what? Almost three years? Two-and-a-half years? And we still have it. I feel like I'm gonna have this triangle for the rest of my life. And so I just try to have this shell that fights it all. Because it used to get to me really bad, for a long time."

On a recent episode of Total Bellas, the former WWE Divas Champion vented about being "trapped" in a marriage. Fans thought one of Cena's recent tweets was a response to her statement.

Talk with someone, not about someone.

— John Cena (@JohnCena) April 28, 2020

Bella admitted in an April 2019 podcast episode that she was miserable during her last run with WWE, which came later in 2018 after the breakup.

"When I came back to wrestle for WWE Evolution storyline, and we didn't get a chance to discuss it in detail on Total Bellas, but it was really hard on me because of having a breakup," Bella said. "I felt like I went back way too soon, and every week I was so depressed and miserable, and every time I entered that arena I had to force a smile on my face," stated Nikki. "I was just so sad because the person that was the love of my life [John Cena]... that was my home, that was where we started, so I was actually happy that we became heels because then I didn't have to put that forced smile on my face and I could act like a b—, you know what I mean?"