After months of speculation, Nikki Bella has confirmed that she has moved on from wrestler ex–fiancé John Cena with dancer Artem Chigvintsev.
She confirmed the happy news on the season finale of Total Bellas on E!, as well as on her Instagram stories. The season ends with her moving from San Diego to Los Angeles and literally jumping on the back of Artem’s motorbike as they ride away to the sunset.
Romantic.
The pair had explosive chemistry when they were partnered together on season 25 of Dancing With The Stars, and have been hinting at a romance since December.
Talking on a clip of the episode, the WWE star said: ‘I just feel like this free spirit. Truly like a butterfly out of her cage. I don’t know. I have this new level of excitement. I’m just, I’m having a lot of fun.
‘And I feel like, [for] the first time ever, I’m focusing on me. It’s crazy. I never in my life would’ve thought that, like, I would’ve had a lot in common with a Russian.’
She added: ‘I’m ready to really explore new things and people and just really see what certain chemistries are all about.’
The 35-year-old cemented their romance by posting a picture of her kissing Chigvintsev’s cheek, making the relationship Instagram official and teasing fans with details of their romance in her upcoming podcast, The Bellas Podcast.
‘Well after that season finale. First thing I’ll be talking about this Wednesday… oh and all those paparazzi photos (thanks for all the great shots and smashing my food lol),’ she wrote.
Bella and Artem weren’t together during their stint on the ABC dancing competition because she was still engaged to fiancé John Cena. The WWE couple broke up in April last year.
The dancing duo, cheekily referred to fans by their nickname, ‘Team Smackdown’ had lasted until the seventh week, when they were eliminated.
It doesn’t come as a total shock to fans, who will remember that Bella told Us Weekly that she’d been ‘dating a while.’
In the same episode, the two-time WWE Divas Champion announced her retirement from the sport after 12 years.
‘[The European WWE tour] was good but I just feel like I’m too old for that travel,’ Bella said Sunday.
‘The travel was really, really rough, so, I realized, I was like, “Why am I doing this? I don’t feel good.” The girls are doing amazing things over there. I really am ready to hang up the jersey, like I can say it fully.’
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