John Cena proposes to Nikki Bella at WrestleMania 33. (WWE.com)
At WrestleMania 33 on Sunday night, John Cena proposed to his real-life girlfriend, Nikki Bella, in front of tens of thousands of people and millions more at home. So how did Nikki Bella feel about this public engagement? Was she happy with the way John Cena proposed?
In an interview on The Today Show on Monday morning, Nikki Bella said she was happy with how Cena proposed, saying that it felt right for them to get engaged in the ring considering the WWE is their home.
“WWE is our home,” she said. “It’s where we met. It’s our passion. It’s our life. And so for me, it was kind of like he’s my Prince Charming and he’s just saying, ‘I want her to be my queen,’ at our home, in front of our family, and honestly, I couldn’t have asked for it to be any other way. It was perfect.”
Nikki Bella did say, however, that she didn’t expect John Cena to propose to her in front of so many people.
Brie Bella, Nikki Bella’s twin sister, felt the same way. She said in a YouTube video reaction immediately following that proposal that she was surprised that John Cena proposed on such a huge stage and not in private.
“We all heard rumors,” she said. “I heard rumors and I was like, ‘No.'”
Although she has said she was surprised and was not in on it, Nikki Bella would have clearly had at least some inkling that this was coming. A WrestleMania proposal had been hinted at on WWE programming for months to the point that people were taking bets on it before the show.
Nikki Bella was actually asked about these bets in an interview before WrestleMania, and she simply said that she is not trying to get her hopes up.
She said in an interview with Between the Ropes, “I guess I’ve just kind of learned to ignore it because one, I don’t want to get my hopes up and then two, like, when we were on the Today Show this past week they told me there’s a props bet going on in Vegas. I’m like, ‘There’s what?’ Legit, it’s like there’s a real bet. It’s funny because John’s like “…who bets on the WWE? Don’t ever bet on the WWE!’ And then it was like heartbreak. See, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.”