Nikki & Brie Bella Are Leaving WWE and Changing Their Names

Nikki and Brie Bella are ready for a new chapter!

The sisters revealed on Tuesday they are leaving WWE and dropping their famous Bella Twins name. Instead they will now be known as the Garcia Twins.

The women announced the news on their SiriusXM podcast “The Nikki and Brie Show.”

Nikki explained, “Today, we are officially, from here on out, the Garcia Twins, Brie and Nikki Garcia.”

She went on, “Our listeners and everyone in the world right now is asking ‘Why? You had this amazing name that you got from your grandfather, Pop Pop’ — who'd always call us ‘my bellas, my bellas’ — and so ‘why after 17 years is that gone?’ Brie and I are almost 40; we're gonna be 40 in November. We're mothers, we're entrepreneurs. We're executive producers. We're starring now. We're hosting shows. And when our contracts, when our contract came up with WWE, mutually, we all knew, like, we just needed to head into this new chapter.”

Brie added, “I just wanna thank Brie Bella. Brie Bella, the character that, the name, all of it. That I have been the last, you know, pretty much almost, I don't know, 16, 17 years. I am so excited to close that chapter on Brie Bella. Put that book to the side and open up a new one and see what Brie Garcia's gonna do next.”

Nikki reflected on her moniker, saying, “And I am so beyond grateful for Nikki Bella. Nikki Bella — whoa! She empowered me. She inspired me. She truly made me become fearless, and the road that she has paved and what she's done for women and the youth and will continue to do just as Nikki Garcia.”

The women joined WWE in 2007. Back in July, fans saw their rise to the top in A&E’s “Biography: WWE Legends.”

At the time, the twins opened up to “Extra” about the special and whether they would return to the ring.

Looking back at their journey and how they got into wrestling, Brie said, “We were Hooters girls, which was our first waitressing job back in 2002… We would show the WWE pay-per-views… Yes, we had this natural athletic ability, we were these soccer elite athletes, but we also loved theater. We loved drama. We would dress up as Spice Girls and go lip-sync — we just loved that part of entertaining. So when I saw WWE pay-per-views at Hooters, I was like, ‘Wow, these girls are really physical,’ which I loved and… their characters, they’re telling a story, like… My whole life, I was doing what these people were doing in a ring — wrestling my sister over something, being athletic — but we always loved entertaining so we felt a very instant connection.”

Nikki shared, “For me, it was taking that first bump in the ring… When we take a back bump in the ring, that’s almost the foundation of wrestling… We get really excited about it… I always joke with Brie it was bump at first sight.”

Sharing how it feels to be seen as legends, Brie said, “Nicole and I, we don’t really wake up and feel like, ‘Whoa, we have legendary vibes,’ but, after watching our doc… we are really proud of ourselves. Like, we really kicked some ass in the last decade.”

Nikki added, “Brie and I have always had a hard time, like, praising our accomplishments and celebrating them, and that was one thing as we’ve gotten older we said we need to do more of, and we still have a hard time with it.”

The big question at the time was whether the sisters would return to the ring.

Nikki said, “We’re more on the retired side, but we still live it. We'll still watch ‘Monday Night Raw’ and I'll be like, ‘Okay, so, like, Becky Lynch did this, Brie, and I think we should go back and do this at WrestleMania.'"

Brie interjected, “She does this all the time.”

Nikki agreed, saying, “I do this all the time. It never ends. Like, when you’re in, you’re in — you never leave.”