by Brie Bella
I made my first post-Birdie comeback at the Royal Rumble. There was no way I could lose my baby weight in time without crash dieting and potentially sacrificing my ability to make breast milk, so I agreed to do it knowing that I would look really different to the fans. I didn’t want that to make me say no. It was such a historic night, and it was such an honor to get the phone call—I couldn’t say no just because of my vanity. I have worked way too hard for that. Plus, I couldn’t imagine explaining to Birdie that I had skipped out on the first ever women’s Royal Rumble because I felt fat. I will remember that night for the rest of my life, and I hope that other women don’t let carrying around a few extra pounds hold them back from doing what they want, either.
I actually enjoyed taking my time with my weight loss. I think it was because when I finally snapped back to normal, it meant that I didn’t have a tiny baby anymore, and I’m sad that Birdie is growing up so fast. I also feel like my life has so much meaning now. It’s so rich and full. I don’t want to spend my days starved and at the gym, missing the whole thing. Between all our brands and businesses, our plates are full. Sometimes at the end of a crazy day, when I know I should work out, I choose to pour myself a glass of wine instead. There are days when you need to say screw the gym in favor of some Cabernet—embrace them!
Nicole
Just like it’s important to let up on the body shaming of women everywhere and to start to project a more inclusive and realistic body image throughout advertising, we also believe that women should have better options when it comes to the quality of the products that they use every day. We believe that it is messed up that the products we put on and in our bodies are full of toxic chemicals that are known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, and we believe that it is messed up that the FDA doesn’t regulate them. When Brie and I started Birdiebee, we wanted to do both basic and beautiful lingerie and loungewear for women that was made from really high-quality fabrics and materials that were free from nasty chemicals. Our end goal is to make sure that everything in the collection is organic, which we’re moving toward while keeping an eye on making it affordable. And we want to present the lingerie in a body-positive way, for all women, with all different bodies.
Every woman deserves to feel sexy in her own skin, to be able to fall in love with herself in the mirror whether a guy (or gal) is going to undress her or not. It felt important to us to create a lingerie brand that’s by women, for women, that isn’t putting forward a totally unrealistic body image, that isn’t more about the fantasies of men than the way women want to feel.
Brie
It’s funny, because in our first meeting pitching the concept, Nicole immediately told them that we want to make products from fabrics that are “good for our vaginas.” I was trying not to laugh. I think she said vagina twenty times in that first meeting. I could tell that they wanted to react with a “Wow, you are saying the word vagina!”—they had a barely perceptible reaction every time she said it. But that was exactly the point: We think that the word vagina shouldn’t make people blush. No woman should be embarrassed to say it. We’ve always felt that way. We all come out of them, let’s get used to talking about them!
America does a good job of making sex and pleasure a bad, shameful thing. Particularly for young girls. You don’t really hear the same condemnation of young boys who might be exploring their penises, and pleasure, and having wet dreams. But there is a lot of shame put on girls for doing exactly the same thing. Girls are not allowed to be into sexual pleasure. It is always portrayed as something illicit, deeply private, and dirty. Because of that, women aren’t taught from a young age that it can be beautiful and empowering, that it’s natural and important. Instead, being “sexy” is about subjection, or sluttiness, or a guy’s pleasure. We need to change that. The conversation needs to focus instead on women who are enjoying their sexuality in an empowered and healthy way, the way that we were all meant to. It is how we were all made! It takes courage and bravery to speak openly about your sexuality in the way that Nicole does. We need more women to do it.
When Nicole and I were first dreaming up our brand, we decided that we wanted something that truly represented us. Being a hippie, I didn’t want to make anything that was unnecessary, which is how we settled on essentials and lingerie—everyone needs underwear. And we wanted to put inspirational sayings and people’s voices on shirts in order to feed this collective movement of positivity that’s happening all around us. We have a platform, and we wanted to walk the walk. We want to build actual products to represent what we’re trying to create in the world.
When we were researching fabrics for the intimates line, we were shocked by how many toxic chemicals are in most materials—these are fabrics that you wear close to your body, against your vagina in many cases. We insisted on doing premium fabrics that were free from toxic dyes and chemicals until we could get the line to a place where we could affordably source fabrics that were 100 percent organic. And that’s when we had to part ways with Daymond John. We had met Daymond when the Super Bowl was in Phoenix and had fanned out on him hard because we both love Shark Tank. We told him we wanted to start a company and he thought we had the chops, but we ultimately had a different vision. Daymond is an awesome guy, and an incredible businessman, but he felt very strongly that we needed to do licensing deals, and that higher-quality fabrics were out of our reach—that they were just too expensive. I had to keep reminding him that I’m a hippie, and that I didn’t want to make something solely to slap my name on it. Plus, remember how we react when someone tells us that something can’t be done?
Once we were on our own, Nicole went to meet with intimates designers all over Los Angeles. Meantime, I started to drive from factory to factory, learning all that I could about how material is made. Every factory was twenty minutes away from the next and I was newly pregnant and peeing constantly, which means I spent most of the day learning all of the locations of Starbucks bathrooms. Nicole had an educational day, too, particularly when she asked the lingerie designer if she could turn around the collection the following week. As we’ve learned, doing things right takes much longer than that!
In the end, I’m grateful to Daymond John because our parting ways made me get off my ass and go experience everything firsthand. We ended up touching the whole process, taking control of our product, and getting to know every nook and cranny of the business, including the ins and outs of the factories. We needed to understand how it all has to come together in order to make the thing you want. Business can be intimidating, particularly for two women who never went to a four-year college and have a far-from-typical career trajectory. But it has been really empowering to force ourselves to learn things, to not be intimidated by all that we don’t know. And the reality is, like with most things, it’s far less complicated than people want you to believe. It’s primarily about following your gut. We had already spent a year developing the line, and in the course of a few days, we realized that we had to start over. We needed to redesign the products to feel more like us, and we needed to source better fabrics. But it’s been worth it; it was a blessing in disguise.
We still have a lot to learn. It has been challenging to try to run a company while wrestling for WWE and filming two TV shows. If we had it to do over, I would insist on controlling every part of the process even if it took us longer to launch. There are a lot of things that need to line up exactly right. At the beginning, it’s key to make it as close to your vision as possible, so that the people who work for you understand what you want and can then rinse and repeat. And it’s also hard and expensive to fix things after the fact. Because we’re going for higher-quality materials, we’ve also struggled to keep the price point as low as we would like for our fans—when we launched, they were pissed. They felt like we had left them out by making everything too expensive. I wish we had better communicated why. We worked really hard to make sure that the materials were right, and we priced it all as low as we could from that. It was har
d not to feel bummed out that our fans were so disappointed. I’m sure they felt like it was arbitrary, that we were just trying to make a quick buck, because we didn’t explain ourselves well.
We were also both very adamant about including plus sizes at launch and showing a wide range of ethnicities and skin tones. But we couldn’t get it lined up for the launch—we didn’t have the plus-size samples in time to be photographed, we didn’t insist on signing off on the models that had been chosen, and we had already announced the launch date to the press and our fans. When we saw the launch photography and realized everyone was skinny and blond, we should have pushed it back and insisted on a reshoot, but we felt like the train had left the station. It was a misfire. Knowing what I know now, I realize that it would have been a better message to be honest about the delay than to put up with Birdiebee leaving out a lot of our fans, but we felt pushed into launching anyway. As we move forward, we are trying to do much better. As we learn more and more, we are feeling increasingly confident in our ability to trust our guts and make the right calls for the business.
Our long-term goal is to move into feminine hygiene products, to create organic tampons and wipes and lubes that are sex- and body-positive, and completely free from toxins. That are 100 percent safe or even actively good for you. As soon as we have the intimates and loungewear in hand, we will move on to that.
Part of the learning curve has been understanding how to hire, and when to fire. Building a team is really hard. We’ve found that just because we like someone, or they do nice stuff for us, doesn’t mean that they’re the perfect fit. We have needed to harden our hearts a little bit. We can’t be so taken with gestures that we don’t see through to what best serves the business. It’s tough because we both have huge hearts. I think it goes back to our childhood, those cherished moments when someone was nice to us, or showed us some kindness. It’s hard not to let that affect the business when difficult decisions need to be made.
Nicole
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but making wine is a whole lot more pleasurable than making T-shirts—though it takes a long-ass time to do it right, too. If you’ve watched even one episode of Total Divas or Total Bellas, then you know that Brie and I are winos. We have always enjoyed a glass of red at the end of a long day, even when it was $4.99 from the bar at the Holiday Inn Express. You could say that Belle Radici and Bonita Bonita, our wine companies, have been in the making since we were sneaking drinks underage, though during our Hooters days, we were still drinking Bud Light.
We grew up in a farming and agriculture family. We spent much of our childhood down in Brawley, California, where our Pop Pop’s fledgling produce cart from Philadelphia had become an intergenerational company. The earth has always been in our blood. As we took more and more trips to Napa to drink wine and relax, we became increasingly interested in how wine is made, and the agricultural practices behind it. When we met Ryan Hill, of Hill Family Estate, a vineyard that makes some of the best wines in the region (and supplies grapes to many of the other incredible makers in the area), it felt like fate. Like us, Ryan grew up in a family of people who worked the earth, though their singular focus was on grapes, whereas our family touches everything from oranges to asparagus.
We wanted to make really beautiful wines and then bring them to the Bella Army at a really good price—since we could sell the wine straight from the site, we could cut out the middle man. And incredibly, we blew out both of our wines within thirty-six hours—the red blend was all gone in fifteen hours. The launch went way beyond our expectations, and we were elated to read comments that people were as into the wine as we were. Since then we’ve introduced a Chardonnay and a rosé, which also sold out immediately.
Belle Radici and Bonita Bonita seem quite distinct from Birdiebee, but the way we think about the empire that we want to build, they’re not. Both our wine companies and our lifestyle brand are predicated on the idea of celebrating life, of looking for any occasion, whether it’s a date night or a family gathering, to wear something that makes you feel good, eat something delicious, and top it off with an incredible bottle of wine. We want to relish life’s small pleasures, in all the details that make us feel like empowered women.
The TV shows, the Instagram followers, the general interest in what we do is so worth it if it means that we get to change the world. It isn’t surprising that a lot of people assume Brie and I are in the wrestling game because we want to be famous; but we’re actually in this because we want to be successful. When we were young and living with our parents in Arizona, all Brie and I wanted was to stand on our own two feet, to have control over our futures and our destinies. We wanted to be in charge of our own happiness. If fame were all we were after, there are easier ways to get there than throwing yourself around in a ring in a canned food factory. We were getting enough small breaks then that we probably would have been able to string something together as twin actresses. But that’s not what we wanted—we wanted to change the world.
We have always longed for real connection—not sympathy. So before this book we held back a lot of our story. We never wanted anyone to assume that we got where we’ve gotten because we leveraged what happened to us in our past. We never wanted to build our following on victimhood or play that card, so to speak. But we’d also be lying if we said that everything that has happened to us hasn’t landed us right where we are. It certainly made us stronger and tougher, and it made us want success more. We both had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
I think that people who know us now will be surprised by these pages. They may be surprised that there’s so much pain in our history and that we’re so positive despite it all. I think we’ve worked hard, and will continue to work hard throughout our lives, to process everything in a way that is healthy, to spin pain into gold. While trauma has been part of our story, we don’t want it to become the defining plotline, ever. I hope that readers who have suffered similar things in their own pasts will read these pages and know that they’re not alone. We don’t have to stay in the darkness. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes, from our experiences. Brie and I both feel like we’re here to be teachers and guides. We live our lives like an open book so that others can learn from, or see themselves in, our life stories. And see how we have not only survived but thrived.
Now that wrestling full-time is no longer an option for me, I’m anxious to try new things. I’d love to have a talk show with Brie someday where we can drink wine and have fun conversations with strangers, or even have a wine show. Or maybe even do some acting. We also want to run our own production company so that we can be the deciding voice in the room and have full creative control. We want to be able to put shows and movies out there that get overlooked, or have great meaning. I would love to be more of an activist for what I believe in.
Brie
As has been said by many wise people in the world (and many bumper stickers): Be the change you want to see in the world. We feel like we’ve been put on earth to do exactly that. If we can change just one person’s life, then it’s worth it. We are pleasers, and we take care of other people first. That has fueled us to work around the clock. We want to make enough to share, to be able to buy our friends dinner when they’re stretched, to give someone a spare bedroom to crash in when they have nowhere else to go, to help the animals and the earth. We live happy, comfortable lives because we’re always giving. We try not to keep it all for ourselves. I’m grateful for every day that I get to breathe. You only get so much time, so let’s make every moment count.
The day we were born at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, California, on November 21, 1983.
In our bassinets at my grandparents’ condo in Scottsdale, Arizona, four days after we were born.
Pop Pop with us in 1984 at his condo in Scottsdale.
Nana with Brianna at my mom’s baby shower in El Centro, California, in 1984. My mom missed her baby shower because we came early.
Hanging out at our grandparents
’ house in 1987. Brianna is on the left and Nicole is on the right.
Us always looking so identical!!! Brianna is on the left and Nicole is on the right in 1992.
JJ and Nicole on a tractor in the Majesty fields in Brawley, California, in 1992.
Pop Pop with Nikki and Brie after our first communion in Brawley, California, in 1991. Brianna is on the right and Nicole is on the left.
Mutton Bustin’ competition at the Cattle Call Rodeo in Brawley, California, in 1992. Nicole won!! Brianna on the left, Nicole in the middle, and JJ on the right.
Our parents in 1991 at the Garth Brooks concert in El Centro, California.
One of our favorite family vacations in Colorado at a dude ranch in 1990.
At our grandparents’ house in Brawley, California, in 2003 for Drummer Boy Dinner.
Bear drew his and my split faces in 2001. He had them hanging in his room, where they touched and created one face.
A collage I made when Bear and I were together, which I had on my wall by my bed in 2002.
Nikki and Brie making their entrance at Wrestlemania 31.
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Brie hits a missile dropkick.
© WWE. All Rights Reserved.