by Brie Bella
CHAPTER 7 HARD BUMPS
2004–2018
Los Angeles, California
Tampa, Florida
Brie
I never expected to be a stepmom when I was twenty-one years old, but when I met Craig, it seemed like a foregone conclusion. He had a seven-year-old daughter, who I loved. But I barely knew how to take care of myself, much less step in and be a role model for a second-grader. For whatever reason, I think because I was so blindingly in love, I thought I could figure it out—I was even willing to swallow the reality that when you’re involved with someone who has kids, you have no shot of ever being number one in their heart. At the time, I thought I could change that—now that I have Birdie, I realize I had no shot.
I loved that little girl, though. And I really loved Craig, in a way that made it seem impossible that he wouldn’t turn out to be the one. He really loved and cared for me and taught me some of the basics of life—in addition to being gorgeous, with blue eyes and long black hair and tattoos. He took me around the world and spoiled me. He made me feel like his girl, he made me feel special. I was young when we met, full of passion and a taste for drama, with a real desire to please. Craig was more removed—he loved me, and he wanted me to be around, but he also wanted his life to be as it was. Probably because of this, he always made me feel like I was really needy—and, as a side effect of that, a little crazy. Looking back, the tendency for guys to label women like that does, in fact, drive me crazy—actually, it makes me furious. I don’t think there’s anything strange about wanting a text from your boyfriend that says, for example, that he’s landed safely after flying across the globe. I wanted those sorts of check-ins. I didn’t think it was crazy to expect him to text or call to say good night if we were sleeping in separate states. It was a little ironic when this free-spirited, don’t-tie-me-down-with-your-feelings-and-your-neediness hard rocker was really bothered when I moved to Tampa to pursue WWE.
I wasn’t in Florida when Nicole broke her nose at FCW, because Craig had given me an ultimatum. I had been at a movie with friends when he sent me a text. It said he hadn’t signed up for a relationship where I wasn’t there to sleep next to him at night. I remember sitting in the parking lot outside of the theater and staring at my phone in a panic. He told me that if I didn’t come back home, that was it, we were done. I was in love with Craig, but I was also in love with wrestling. It was a tug-of-war for my heart, and it seemed unfair that he expected me to choose. I called the head of talent and begged for a bit of time off to go back to Los Angeles to make my relationship right. It seemed only fair that I work on it as hard as I was working on my wrestling. I thought I was going to get fired. People didn’t really take personal breaks like that, however short it may have been, particularly when they were right on the cusp of potentially getting a shot at the main roster. Nicole was furious with me, as she had every right to be, for risking it. After all, her relationship with Jake had hit the shitter because of wrestling, and our chances for making it to the next level were handcuffed together because of our twindom.
Craig was used to being my number one without any sacrifice on his part. I didn’t really know what to do with his dismay over feeling abandoned. He made me feel like I had left him behind in L.A. to rot. I took responsibility and felt like I was a bad person because of it. From his point of view, we had been attached at the hip for two years, and then suddenly he was expected to go to bed alone every night. At the time—and it frustrates me in retrospect—my point of view was that his point of view was right: I was disappointing him, and he had every right to feel angry with me. In retrospect, the writing was on the wall that our relationship had been, and always would be, uneven. There was an unspoken expectation that I would make all the sacrifices. After all, he only bothered to come and see me in Tampa once—and I had to buy his plane ticket on my measly salary. (To add insult to injury, there was only a direct flight to Orlando, and he refused to make a connection, so I had to drive and pick him up there.) It’s funny, because he came to one of my matches at a bar named Bourbon Street, and he got emotional as he watched me wrestle. He was blown away and couldn’t stop talking about it. When he had first met me, I was a waitress with some aspirations of becoming an actress. Then I had moved to Florida and morphed into a powerful athlete and entertainer. Based on that, I thought he would become more supportive. But he couldn’t reconcile my absence with how he expected and wanted his life to be.
Once Nicole and I made it to the main roster, I was out on the road for four or five days a week. Then I would boomerang back to Los Angeles, trying to keep my relationship with Craig on the rails. I think because of our age difference, I was too intimidated to be honest about my emotional needs, and so I let him walk all over me. I don’t think that was his intent; I just never challenged it. I didn’t give myself permission to ask for what I wanted, like true intimacy, and freedom to pursue my own career, and ultimately, marriage and kids. I think that’s why it was so confusing and disorienting to him when I initially moved to Florida—he took my constant presence for granted and assumed that our relationship was feast enough for my soul, that he was giving me everything I wanted, because I had never asked for more.
Over the next few years, as I traveled back and forth to Los Angeles, it started to feel really different. Distance can do that for sure, but I think I had also begun to learn how to express myself in the ring. Pretending like pleasing him was my primary goal in life just didn’t sit right with who I knew I was as a person. I guess I was becoming myself: a firebrand, a loudmouth, a strong woman who speaks whatever is on her mind. I didn’t want to believe that things had shifted between us; I was so in love with him and felt like I singularly held the responsibility for fucking it up. He was an awesome guy, and for a long time, we had an amazing relationship, and so much fun together. But I knew that I couldn’t live only for a man. I needed to go and do what I was drawn to—I’ve always had Bear’s voice in my head pushing me forward. I felt Bear’s insistence in every fiber of my being, that I keep pushing it in the wrestling ring.
The fourteen-year age difference was hard. I was young and crazy and wild, and he was coming to the end of wanting to be wild and crazy. When he hit forty, I was only twenty-six—we were in totally different periods of our lives. I wanted to party and do crazy stuff, and it wasn’t in the cards for him anymore. He’d had his fill. By the end, we were operating a bit like roommates. We still had a lot of fun together, drinking beers at the pub down the street, but we were really just friends.
Our relationship had been on the decline for a couple of years. During what would be our final June together, I gave myself until Labor Day to turn things around. I figured if things changed, I’d stick around. But if things stayed as they were, I just couldn’t do it. One breath, he’d want to have kids and get married; the next breath, not so much. I knew that marriage and kids were nonnegotiable for me, that my life wouldn’t be complete without both. Then one day, I overheard him telling his friend Brett that he really just didn’t want it. I was in the other room, and he didn’t think that I could hear. My heart sank. I knew I wasn’t in the business of trying to force someone into wanting something that they ultimately didn’t want. I could hear in his voice that it was how he really felt, and that he just didn’t have the heart to let me down. We had both invested almost five years in being with each other, and it was a lot to walk away from. So often, relationships come to feel like investments, and that they’re somehow worthless if you don’t fully cash out. You end up clinging to them for way too long. I knew it was time for us to let each other go. A few months later, I watched Shopgirl, the L.A.-based movie with Claire Danes (glove salesclerk) and Steve Martin (rich tech guy) and their messed-up love story. In it, her character acknowledges as she walks away from their one-sided relationship: “I can either hurt now, or hurt later.” And I thought, “Wow, that’s so true.” I saw a lot of my own relationship in their dynamic. I knew I needed to start my crying now.
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nbsp; I called Nicole and asked her to come to Los Angeles with a U-Haul. Then I told Craig that I just couldn’t do it anymore. He looked at me, and he knew in his heart that I was right—we cared about each other deeply, but we were falling out of love. I knew there was something better for both of us. I think he was blown away that I actually had the balls to leave, that I went through with it.
I put my stuff in storage, packed five boxes, and moved to the guest room of a good friend in New York City. Craig was like a father figure in many ways, which always made me feel young. But New York made me feel all grown-up—New York made me feel like a woman.
Nicole
While Brie was living in Los Angeles trying to make it work with Craig, I was living in San Diego. I was wrestling during the week, while fighting my own relationship battles. As discussed, I have never been good at staying single—being alone is just not my natural, or preferred, state. But after Jake, I refused to jump into another relationship. And then, of course, because some lessons are really hard to learn the first, second, or third time, I involved myself with another playboy.
We can call this wrestler Brad. He was loud, and hilarious, and loved attention. After matches, we would all end up at the hotel bar, and he was always there to make everyone laugh, with a smart-ass joke for every occasion. He would look at me in a certain way, knowing that it would make me feel a certain way—he knew exactly what he was doing. He teased me a lot, too, the way you tease a girl you like in third grade. And he would make himself challenging—every girl loves a challenge. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that Brad knew how to hook a girl. And then mind-fuck her.
We started sleeping together, though that did not deter him from openly and aggressively flirting with other girls. Our relationship was casual, and I certainly had no claims on him, but it drove me crazy anyway. It was the first time that I had been with a guy who wasn’t clamoring to lock me down. It drove me batshit crazy. It made me obsessed with him. The problem with that sort of imbalance is that it never really gives you a chance to assess the relationship, or your compatibility, on stable ground. You spend so much energy trying to get something that you think you want, that is just a little out of reach, that you don’t have a chance to actually judge whether you want the thing in the first place.
I loved having sex with him, which only complicated matters. We had great chemistry in the bedroom, and he was still making me laugh. But he was a little cruel, too. He thought very little about protecting my feelings. I think he thrived on that gray area, that middle ground, where I was constantly left questioning the boundaries of our relationship with a big “What the hell are we?”
And then we had a really good year together where we settled into what felt like an adult relationship. We didn’t tell each other that we loved each other, we rarely held hands, but it felt like we were together—at least while we were on the road with WWE. We were both living in Tampa at the time; he was toying with the idea of moving back to the Midwest, while I had decided to move back to San Diego. Because you spend a majority of your week together on the road when you’re dating another wrestler, the geography of your permanent home doesn’t really matter. You’re rarely there—if anything, you’re relieved to have a bit of a break from each other during the off days. He was over at my apartment helping me pack, which meant that he spent the day playing around on my computer while I put stuff in boxes. When he headed home that night, he left his Myspace open.
Now, I know the rule. The second you start looking at something not intended for your eyes, you’re probably going to find something that you don’t want to see. But I couldn’t help myself from scrolling through his messages. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary and was feeling ashamed for being nosy, when I decided to look at one more page. And then I saw messages from her: “Last night was so good.” I kept scrolling and reading: Lies about me, bashing me, nude photos, endless flirtation. Then I saw where it started: “Last night was so amazing. I can’t believe it finally happened.” The messages were from one of my closest friends at WWE—a girl who had come to San Diego to see my family with me two nights before she apparently banged my man for the first time.
I called him and asked him to come back over and then slapped him hard. Then I started to bawl, because I would have never, ever done that to him. It was beyond hurtful, beyond the limits of the heavy and incessant flirting he did with other women on the regular, which already felt like it was boundary stretching for a healthy relationship. While we had never had a commitment talk, and I’m sure he had plenty of side pieces over the course of our relationship, there was a rule that was so sacred it didn’t even need to be spoken: We did not sleep with other wrestlers. Not only had he slept with another wrestler, but he had slept with a wrestler who happened to be one of my closest friends, who knew about my feelings for him. It was an undeniable betrayal. I used to go out to dinner with both of them, while this whole drama was unfolding behind my back. He claims it only happened once or twice—but even that was two times too many. She called me repeatedly and left voicemails, but we never spoke again.
Fortunately, that was enough to end what was a dysfunctional relationship. It was fun while it lasted, and he is a friend to this day. But we had no business trying to make it work romantically. It’s funny, because we always had such a great time together—I still love talking to him—but his fear of commitment, or just asshole-like tendencies, made it all so terrible. He legit made me feel like a stupid girl.
I rinsed off my relationship with Brad with a bartender in L.A., who was trying to make it in the industry. He was tall, dark, good-looking, hilarious—but as much as I liked him, our relationship was short-lived because it turned out he had a girlfriend. I was bummed and disappointed, but I was also used to shenanigans like that. And he did me the favor of breaking my cycle with Brad and giving it some finality and resolution. The bartender provided enough of a distraction for me, enough of a wedge, that I was able to quit Brad cold turkey instead of falling into an ongoing cycle of sleeping with him on and off depending on when I felt lonely. Brad will always make me laugh—he’s an amazing guy. And it seems like he’s finally ready to be a great husband … to someone else.
Brie
Birdie and Bryan are hard to top, but the two years that I lived by myself in New York were some of my best. It was the first time in my life when I felt truly independent, financially stable, and had the luxury of really only worrying or thinking about myself. I didn’t have a serious boyfriend who had a stake in my comings and goings, or a say over my schedule. There was nobody who held dominion over my emotions or could make me feel alternately good and bad. It was really liberating and really fun. I had a job I loved, I was making good money, I had made a little name for myself at that point. The city felt like it was mine to conquer. New York gave me other gifts, too, like the chance to tap into a life of arts and culture that I had first shared with Bear. I went to Broadway plays, I gallery hopped in Chelsea on the weekends, and hung out with musicians and artists. I even called my mother to tell her I was done with the West Coast for good.
Like Nicole, I was rebounding with bartenders across the city. Wrestlers and bartenders are, by nature, deeply compatible. Bartenders kept the same schedule as us, they gave us free drinks, and they took no issue with our itinerant lifestyle. When I was in New York City, it typically meant that I didn’t have to work. I could party with them all night, and then sleep in all day. Some days I was in town; others, not. It was no-strings-attached, let’s-use-each-other-for-drinks-and-sex fun. I felt like Carrie Bradshaw.
I moved into my own apartment just north of Soho in Greenwich Village—a sweet little studio with a big closet and a tiny kitchen (the fridge door would slam into the oven, which wasn’t that problematic because I didn’t keep anything in my fridge except for wine). It was the first time that I had actually lived by myself, and I relished every moment of it. I went to the nearby hardware store and painted the walls; I hung rock ’n’ roll pi
ctures that I put in distressed frames. It was a cute, little, shabby chic, rock ’n’ roll joint, and it was all mine. I had a single big-ticket item on the wall, a guitar signed by Keith Richards, Pete Townsend, and Bruce Springsteen that I had drunkenly bid on at an auction. It was the most expensive thing I ever bought, but I still don’t regret it.
I had made a pact with myself to stay single, to stay open to possibility, which popped up in spades throughout the city. It was a great time to be in New York—and maybe the city’s still the same—but it felt like the chance encounters of living among millions of strangers meant that you could spark a romance on the subway, or at the very least a story that you could dine out on for a long time to come. It was also a great place to keep my pact of staying single, because it never seemed to me like anyone in New York City was actually looking for a real relationship. In fact, my very first date came shortly after I moved, when I got lost on the subway. This handsome Italian-looking man, in a nice coat and scarf and gloves, offered to help me find my way. He stopped his own journey home and escorted me to where I was trying to go. I was totally charmed, and then he asked me to go to dinner. He took me to a really nice restaurant, where he started venting to me about his wife and kids. It was one of those record-scratch-to-silence moments. “Wait, you have a wife and kids?”
“Yes,” he said. “But they live outside the city.” I guess he thought that would put me at ease, and that propositioning me over dinner was a perfectly normal thing to do. He was looking for a Thursday girl.
“Do you think I look like the type of woman who wants to be your Thursday girl?” He seemed legitimately confused that I wasn’t interested in his offer. It was a good reminder of why I had decided to stick to bartenders—sweet and uncomplicated. A short while later, I met a French guy who was my age. We started talking in the aisle at Whole Foods and he invited me over to his place in the East Village for a barbecue. We hung out for three straight days—and then he told me he had to go back to Paris, left, and to my knowledge, never came back.