Total Bellas is back! Nikki Bella’s hot romance with Artem Chigvintsev was a focal point on the show’s April 2 episode. Things were going great between the two, but everything got shaken up when Artem found out that he was not asked back to compete on Dancing With the Stars. At the same time, Nikki was building a new home to Arizona to move into, and she decided to ask Artem to leave L.A. and move in with her, since he wouldn’t be working in Los Angeles anymore. He happily agreed, but not everyone in Nikki’s life was on-board with the decision.
“Right now, this is my sister going from zero to 100 within, like, one week,” Nikki’s sister, Brie Bella, admitted. “I’ve always wanted my sister to have a place she can call her own. Not that I don’t want her to share it with Artem, but I want her to fill it for herself.” While visiting the house, Brie brought up her concerns with her sister. “Does it freak you out at all that everything that’s happened has forced you guys to move in and move your relationship forward so quickly?” she asked.
Nikki didn’t feel like it was moving too fast, though. “If this is a relationship for the long run, which to me, it feels that way, it is kind of cool that we have a blank home that we could build together,” she explained. “I’m with this guy all the time, why wouldn’t we just live together?” Brie made it clear that she was worried that Nikki was making a “mistake,” and that she was moving in with Artem simply due to “convenience” after he got let go from DWTS. “I don’t want you to make decisions based on what’s going on in your guys’ careers,” Brie admitted. “That’s why I get nervous.”
Eventually, all the chatter began getting to Nikki. “You can’t help how fast you fall in love with someone,” she said in a confessional. “If the connection’s there, it’s going to be fast. But when I’m constantly hearing everyone tell me that I’m moving too fast….it does kind of mess with your head a bit.”
Nikki then approached Artem with her new feelings about the situation. “Do you at all think that we are moving too fast?” she asked him. “Like, moving in together…I just get really excited, but I don’t think about the future. This isn’t playing house.” The look of disappointment on his face was obvious. “It’s hard because, I mean…that’s not really the life I’m looking at,” he told her.
At that point, Nikki began worrying that she ruined everything. “Did I just make a big mistake?!” she asked in a confessional. “I just took us backwards instead of forwards. When you go backwards….I don’t know…did I just ruin it all? Did I just lose the man of my dreams?” Artem played it cool in front of Nikki — “If one of us isn’t ready, then maybe it’s not the time,” he said — but in his confessional, he admitted to being hurt.
“It doesn’t feel good,” he revealed. “When I agree to something, I really think through that. I don’t want to be in a position where I have to be like…well, that’s not happening now. It’s not playing with feelings, but that’s how I felt. But, with Nicole, I always have to take everything with a sugar spoon, in a sense. Sometimes, Nicole just says things because it feels right in that specific moment, but it’s not a real thought for her. She definitely caught me off guard.”
Since Artem and Nikki are still together to this day, we know they got over this obstacle. However, we’ll have to see how it affects their relationship as Total Bellas continues on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. on E!