Nikki Bella Says Son Matteo Would Stay With Her If She and Artem Chigvintsev Broke Up

Nikki Bella had some serious ups and downs during her pregnancy with son Matteo. In a Season 6 sneak peek of Total Bellas, returning to E! on Thursday, Nov. 12, the former WWE Superstar admits her pregnancy was not how she thought it would be after she and fiancé Artem Chigvintsev were expecting at the same time as her twin sister, Brie Bella, and her husband Daniel Bryan.

In the season preview, Nikki tells her pregnant sister she wished they could both “get drunk,” amid drama involving their mother’s brain surgery and Matteo’s “heart scare.” Nikki can be “too much to handle,” her family members note, as tensions rise amid everything that was going on. They even seem to ask what would happen if she and Chigvintsev were to break up, to which the athlete responds, “Matteo would come with me because I’m the mother.”

There appears to be no split on the horizon, however, as the Dancing With the Stars pro and his former partner welcoming son Matteo in July, less than 24 hours before Brie would give birth to son Buddy. “How about that tag team!” Nikki tweeted the following month. “I can’t believe Brie and I had boys less than 24 hours apart! Honestly only us! Lol. And that I beat her. As you can imagine everyone said it was my baby and mines competitive side that kicked in! I can’t wait for our Bellas Boys to grow up together!”

Nikki and Chigvintsev have plans to marry when COVID-19 safety guidelines dictate it would be safe, having first met and bonded during her time in the DWTS ballroom in Season 25. At the time, Nikki was engaged to longtime beau John Cena, but she insisted on her Bellas Podcast last month there were no romantic feelings with Chigvintsev until after they were no longer together.

“You definitely get an emotional bond with them because it is so scary … I’ve never been that nervous before,” she explained. “That’s the crazy thing being with him now is there were none of those feelings at all.” Joking that she even remembers being “uncomfortable” doing some of the more physical moves with a man who wasn’t her fiancé, Bella noted that she bonded emotionally with Chigvintsev more than anything.

“It was the first time I was ever vulnerable, even with a man, because I was always such a strong, independent woman,” the new mom added. “I wish I could do it again because I couldn’t take in the moment of the dance being beautiful because I was thinking of my steps the whole time. I wish I could’ve taken in those moments but then where I got the bond was just having to depend on him. And I had never had to depend on a man before.”