The Bella Twins continue to get candid about their early days in WWE, Nikki’s past history with sexual abuse, and what it’s like to produce a reality show while in quarantine.
On Maria Menounos’ daytime show Better Together w/ Maria Menounos, The Bella Twins, Brie and Nikki Bella, former WWE superstars and co-leads of Total Bellas on E!, opened up about the 2006 Diva Search, producing Total Divas in quarantine, and more. The Better Together team passed along the following highlights.
The Bella Twins Are In Production With Total Divas Season 7! They Reveal How It’s Getting Done, Despite The Pandemic
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 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 Bella Came Out About Her Rapes
NIKKI: “The #MeToo movement is when Brie 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.”
RELATED: The Bella Twins Reveal The ‘Total Bellas’ Scene That Never Aired, How To Avoid Vince McMahon’s Wrath
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 Bella Twins 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.”
You can view the full interview here.
