by Brie Bella
Brie
One of the issues that Nicole and I have struggled with throughout our time at WWE is the concept of preferential treatment. And it didn’t help when my mom married John Laurinaitis, aka Johnny Ace, the head of talent at WWE. I love Johnny. I loved Mom’s second husband, Greg, too. He was such a sweet guy, and I was pretty devastated when it ended—but ultimately, they fell out of love, and were much better off as friends. When Johnny came into the picture, though, I knew she had finally met her match. We didn’t set them up, and I had no idea that they were dating. I think they wanted to keep us out of it, to see if it was real before it became a thing. It’s funny because when I found out about them, I was like, “When did this happen, and how could I have possibly not known about it?” WWE is pretty small.
They had known each other for a while because she represented us on a lot of our business deals—in fact, she came with us the first time we ever went to WWE. My mom runs a recruiting business, and she has always had a career to provide for our family. She has always been obsessed with business—and obsessed with guys who have a brain for it. She talks about work way too much, which made it hard for her when she was dating—nobody wanted a second date with her because she went on and on about the office. But Johnny loves to talk about business, too, and eventually they fell in love talking about contracts, equity stakes, and P&L statements. Really sexy stuff.
They’re pretty much perfect for each other: They hang out in their sweats and ride their bikes to the pub so they can talk about business over beers. That’s their best day ever. It was hard on us initially because our mother was effectively dating someone in management, even if he had no oversight over our careers. When news broke that they were involved, it definitely created more problems for us, and not in a trivial way. I could hear the whispers throughout the halls: “Oh now the Bellas’ stepdad works in the office.” By the time they got married, it had quieted down, but their relationship definitely spurred on the rumor that we always got favorable treatment.
We had learned that this would always come with the territory—nobody could accept or get comfortable with the idea that we had earned something for ourselves. Nicole dated one of the biggest wrestlers of all time, so our success is entirely because of him. Or I’m married to Daniel Bryan, so it must be that. Why is it so hard to believe that a woman can get something on her own? This sort of thinking, this trivial bullshit, is why women haven’t had more opportunities in WWE—we keep ourselves small. That’s why there are one hundred dudes, and fifteen women who are Superstars. Those numbers could and should be far more equal, and we left WWE when our five-year contract was up to help start a movement to prove exactly that. Meanwhile, Triple H was beginning a revolution with the women wrestlers at NXT that would push this issue front and center.
CHAPTER 6 BREAKING DOWN THE WALL
2012–2019
Land O’ Lakes, Florida
San Diego, California
Brie
In 2012, as our five-year contract at WWE was coming to an end, Nicole and I decided to leave. We were tired of pushing for storylines that weren’t coming, and we wanted more TV time and longer matches. Essentially, we just wanted more equality. They had made it clear to us that they thought the twin thing was played out, but they rejected everything new we pitched. They didn’t want to give us what we really desired, which was a shot at making it as solo wrestlers. Instead, they wanted to keep us in nonessential storylines where we were assisting celebrity hosts and fighting over the male wrestlers, which we thought was tired. It was a hard decision. We both really loved wrestling, but we decided it was time to go. We had come to a point where WWE was no longer helping us reach the next level. We had been talking to E! about doing a reality show about our extended farming family in Brawley, so we decided to pursue that as our next chapter.
The fans missed us, which was really gratifying. Shortly after we left, WWE reached out to us to broach the idea of having us stage a comeback. Separately they had been talking to E! about creating Total Divas, and E! wanted us to be in it. I think WWE knew we had never wanted to leave in the first place but that we were unhappy, and that they could get us to come back if they made the terms more fair. So we returned, with the E! cameras in tow. This was when Total Divas, a show about female wrestlers, both on the mat and off, was born. While backstage has historically been kayfabe, or else “behind the wall” and off-limits—important for the fans in terms of preserving the “reality” of the ring—the show idea was compelling to WWE. It promised to open up the sport and the network to legions of potential fans who had never thought that there might be something for them in wrestling. And in reality, kayfabe was gone—WWE was growing up and becoming more corporate. With that, it was no longer possible for them to insist that everyone maintain wrestling personas in their real lives. At that point they encouraged us to be ourselves, while also expressing that in the ring, we were “Broadway with body slams”—we were characters that were larger than life.
Bryan and I were in the early days of our relationship when Nicole and I decided to leave WWE. This certainly threw a wrench into the plan—it meant that we were no longer spending the majority of our weeks together traveling on the road as a couple. But I knew that if we were meant to be, we would figure out how to make it work, despite the distance. Staying in the ring simply to be close to Bryan wasn’t how I had pledged to lead my life. This strength came from Bear: I couldn’t make decisions based on anything other than what was right for me. Ultimately, it ended up being great for us.
Nicole and I got a lot of hate when we were filming the pilot. While many people at WWE wanted to be on the show, some wrestlers acted like they didn’t want the cameras around and that we were sell-outs for going on reality TV. But that always rang pretty hollow—after all, we were all vying for TV time in our careers. We were all entertainers who wanted to draw the biggest crowds possible, and we were all tangling with the line between reality and entertainment already. So why wouldn’t you want to do it for an even bigger audience and show the world how female wrestlers can kick ass? But it definitely kicked up stuff for us backstage, maybe just jealousy. It certainly didn’t help that a lot of the Smart Marks, otherwise known as the know-it-all wrestling fans who know wrestling is choreographed but also hate when that fact is revealed, trolled wrestlers online who were doing the show, which only made it easier for other wrestlers to dump on us for not “being cool.” Honestly, my feeling was that if they were going to live and die by the opinions of people on the internet, then they were going to die broke. People who weren’t cast in the show would cover their faces when the cameras were rolling, I think just to make us feel awkward and foolish. It’s ironic, because Bryan and I are quite private, shy even. But the opportunity seemed too good to turn down—not only have we gotten to show millions of people another side of professional wrestlers, but in our spin-off, Total Bellas, he has gotten to show off his composting toilet and gardening skills, too. If he introduced even one fan to environmentalism, or inspired even one person to use less water, then in his eyes, it was worth it. His heart truly bleeds green.
Nicole’s boyfriend at the time agreed to do the show for her. They were in a new relationship, the producers didn’t even know that they were dating when they started filming, and it felt weird for him to not be shown. Plus, he was really proud of her, and wanted to show up for her, even though he is extremely private. I think he also realized how important it could be for women’s wrestling, for people who might not otherwise get involved with WWE, to see how athletic and wonderful the sport can be. He never earned a dollar from the E! franchise.
Nicole
While showing off wrestling was always the main goal of the show, it was a major relief to let fans see our more normal human sides as well, particularly because Brie and I had only ever been part of twin storylines. With Total Divas, the fans got to see us for who we really are. They got to see that Brie and I may be identical twins, but we’re actually reall
y different. When the cameras were rolling, they got to see who we were in love, who we were when we were upset, or sad, or happy. We forged really significant connections with our fans because they got to see themselves in us. They became attached to who we are in real life and not just to the characters we embody when we are in the ring.
The first season of the show was magic, because when you’ve never filmed a reality show before, you’re not as self-conscious about how you’re going to look or how you might be portrayed. The first season really captured what it’s like backstage, when everyone is fighting for TV time and good matches. When it aired and they saw themselves, some of the girls became anxious about appearing crazy or emotional. They started to resist the urge to be so competitive for fear that they wouldn’t be able to control their images. I still love the show, and I’m fortunate to be an executive producer on it as well, but it’s become more about our personal lives and less about the wrestling. I wish there was more ring time because I’m still blown away by what we all achieve out there.
The best part of the show, by far, has been the new fans that it has brought to women’s wrestling. They are coming—to live events and also to watch our matches on TV. It has an impact, because the more people there are holding up signs for the women, the more likely the WWE is to give us main event matches. I know that when the Divas were wrestling on TV, whether at Raw or SmackDown, we pulled some really high ratings. It is encouraging that the male Superstars aren’t the only ones who can put asses in seats. Through Total Divas, we proved that there is a massive appetite for women’s wrestling. We have connected with the fans in real and powerful ways.
Brie
One of the most gratifying parts of Total Divas for me has been to show many of the real friendships among us. We are champions for each other, first and foremost, and we wanted to show that on TV. It was also important to us that we give our fans an honest look at our lives, including the ups and downs. Bryan didn’t ask the producers to edit out his depression, because he knows how many others struggle with the disease, and the roller coaster of Nicole’s heartbreaking relationship was on full display. As much as wrestling is an individual sport, it’s actually much more like soccer—you can’t wrestle yourself, you can’t carry a match based on your own awesome performance, you need your opponent to play along, to sell the bumps. When you know you are letting the other wrestler win, your intent out there should be to make her look as good as possible, to entertain the crowd with your pain, your anger, your lust for revenge. It just doesn’t work if you make it all about you.
It’s frustrating when there is strife within the ranks, when it feels like we’re not all after the same goal, which to my mind has always been to elevate women’s wrestling across the globe. To give more girls a chance for big matches on the main stage, to change the world one snapmare and bump at a time—to show that women can be sexy and strong, beautiful and smart. The internal criticism and derision of Total Divas within the WWE ranks was frustrating, too. We felt like we were giving female wrestlers a voice and bringing more and more people to the sport—but people backstage, and increasingly on promos, were getting on the mic and slamming us for only being reality stars. It was maddening. The show was nothing but a positive for the women at WWE—I’d challenge anyone to tell me one negative thing that Total Divas has done to the industry. After all, we are women wrestlers in a male-dominated business who are doing our best to kick ass. We are in relationships, we drive ourselves from town to town in the middle of the night, we fight like mad out there, and we get shit done.
One of my favorite matches of all time was against Nattie at SummerSlam in 2013, right after Total Divas premiered. We were enraged, particularly at the suggestion that we weren’t really wrestlers. Nattie and I went out there that night filled with so much anger, and we put all that energy into the mat. That’s when running knee became my signature thing, because people could feel the force of emotion behind it. (In its ultimate evolution, I would scream “Brie Mode!” and then run at the other wrestler and slam her with my knee.) They could feel how real it was to leave it all out there in the ring. Nattie and I were determined to make every fan in the stands know who the Total Divas were—and we wanted them to know that we could wrestle as well as, if not better than, any other Superstar out there.
Some of the Smart Mark fans were also pissed, because they felt like we ruined kayfabe. Vince had broken down that wall long before, and had fully bought into Total Divas, so that never seemed fair. People knew that wrestlers in long-standing rivalries were actually friends in real life, that storylines were a fabrication for the most part. We have social media and the paparazzi to thank for that. But some hardcore wrestling fans like to blame the breaking of kayfabe on us.
It was documented on Total Divas, but WWE marked a big cultural shift in 2016 when they stopped calling the women Divas and started calling them Superstars, which is what they call the men. This is something that we had all wanted for a long time. Generations of women before us had fought for it, too. To create drama and tension for fans, Triple H and his wrestlers cut promo after promo to make it appear that the women on the main roster were clinging to the title of Divas, that we were resisting the tidal wave of feminism that the women of NXT were bringing to WWE. While on the whole this storyline was great for the sport, it was a bummer to be on the other side. Nicole, in particular, was really upset.
Nicole
To give you full context, let’s back up for a second. In February of 2015 there was a tag match between me, Brie, Paige, and Emma—and it lasted for twenty-nine seconds. Essentially, when we got into Gorilla that night, the timekeeper told us that our segment had been cut to a flat two minutes, including entrances. We had started out the day planning for eight minutes, which was then winnowed down to five. Two was ridiculous. We all looked at each other and just knew that we were going to stage a protest. We got in the ring, and without doing anything else, Brie put her finisher on Emma and ended the match. We knew that the fans would be furious, but we also felt like we needed to make a statement.
In wrestling, you can theoretically tell a story in sixty seconds—a minute can be a long time out there—but we were tired of the bullshit. There are sixteen segments in a show, and some matches go for two to three segments. On Raw that night, our two-minute fiasco was the only segment for women. It felt offensive to us that they hadn’t trimmed one of the men’s matches instead to give us a shot at doing something real out there.
The fans were outraged, and they started a tweetstorm with the hashtag #GiveDivasAChance. It was an incredible moment that we could all feel was coming for a long time—decades really—as the women were bringing more and more people to the sport. Fans naturally wanted to see us, and they were furious when they felt like we were short-changed, which honestly happened all the time. WWE knew that they needed to do something to address the fans’ growing disillusionment.
I felt it marked a moment of change in the industry. But then it became a different sort of storyline. Paul Levesque, otherwise known as Triple H or Hunter, is Stephanie McMahon’s husband. She is the heir to the WWE throne—Hunter runs NXT, the developmental league, and he is incredible at crafting stories. A storyline emerged out of NXT that made it look like Brie and I, and the rest of the cast of Total Divas, were holding the women wrestlers back, rather than using our popularity and the general interest in the sport to push the whole thing forward. I get that it made good promos, and that WWE is predicated on drama and conflict, but this was so real to me. It was so important and central to what Brie and I, and many of the other Divas, wanted to accomplish there. It was ultimately upsetting.
We had been groomed to be Divas, and to make the audience, and all the girls who came to watch us wrestle, care about the Divas, and care about the Divas title. Then they groomed the NXT girls to give interviews mocking us and mocking the Divas. NXT claimed that WWE had hired Divas to be Divas, but that this next class of women were actually real wrestlers, rea
dy to bring change. We were working our asses off, slamming our bodies and breaking our necks—literally. We were doing media all over the country to make people appreciate the word Divas, so that they could turn around and make it look like the women of NXT were leading a revolution?
I think what really bummed me out was that we were all fighting for equality and we were all supposed to be on the same side. But instead, in order to turn the transition into drama, they decided to split us up. That bothered me, to be positioned as the people who were holding women back. I had to continue to be reminded that it was just a storyline, and a way to bring up Charlotte, Becky Lynch, Bayley, and Sasha Banks. But after all that we had put on the line, it was hard to not take it personally.
I got a lot of texts from women who had helped to drive the sport forward over the years. In that NXT move, they all felt like their hard work never counted. Instead of being celebrated as part of a long lineage of change, it looked like they were bringing the inequality on themselves. We got to the point of being called Superstars because of the women who paved the road for us—it started with Mae Young, the Fabulous Moolah, Sensational Sherri, Luna Vachon, Leilani Kai, Alundra Blayze, Jacqueline, Trish Stratus, Lita, Torrie Wilson, Molly Holly, Victoria, Mickie James, Beth Phoenix, Gail Kim, Melina, Michelle McCool, Natalya, and so many more. We were part of different generations who all wanted the same thing—respect, more match and TV time, and to be taken seriously as wrestlers and athletes.