{"id":613785,"date":"2026-07-31T17:05:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/613785\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T17:05:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:05:27","slug":"what-the-bella-twins-watch-and-read-with-their-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/613785\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Bella Twins Watch (and Read) With Their Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Slaven Vlasic, A. Perez Meca\/Europa Press), National Geographic, 20th Century Studios, Courtesy of retailers\n <\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty funny that Nikki and Brie Bella had their boys, Matteo and Buddy, just hours apart, in hospital rooms right next to each other. The twins-turned-WWE stars have always been close\u2014born 16 minutes apart and raised on a farm outside Scottsdale, Arizona\u2014but even their inseparable bond doesn\u2019t fully explain that kind of timing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t plan for it, but we call the boys our spiritual twins because they\u2019re like brothers,\u201d Nikki says. \u201cBuddy is who Matteo asks for the most, like when he wakes up in the morning, he\u2019s the first person he asks about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buddy is also the one most likely to go into the family business. \u201cHe loves it so much,\u201d Brie says. \u201cMy daughter Birdie cares more about what the women are wearing. When she found out Bianca Belair makes her own outfits, her mind was blown.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Matteo shares his cousin\u2019s enthusiasm for female wrestlers\u2014and for luchadors, who Nikki says he\u2019s always in awe of\u2014he\u2019s not too sure about watching what his mom endures in the ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t like me wrestling,\u201d Nikki says. \u201cHe\u2019s not crazy about his Auntie Breezy wrestling, either. He doesn\u2019t like us getting hurt. When he\u2019s at a show and I start to get beat up, I can feel his eyes from afar. I was in the ring recently and I remember looking over, because I had never seen his face like that. Just jaw dropped, eyes huge. Like, \u2018What did I just watch?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Matteo might have to look away when his mom and aunt team up with Paige to face the villainous faction Fatal Influence at WWE\u2019s Summer Slam event this weekend. In between wrestling matches, here\u2019s what the WWE Hall-of-Famers watch, read, play, and listen to with their kids.<\/p>\n

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Photo: David Ramos\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

Nikki Bella: <\/strong>My son Matteo is a ham but he\u2019s also obsessed with airplanes and trains and world flags and countries. It\u2019s really cute because instead of wanting to watch cartoons all the time, he always wants to watch YouTube clips. He\u2019ll be like, \u201cMom, I want to see the 611 train in Virginia<\/a>,\u201d or \u201cI want to see what Norwegian Airlines looks like flying into Norway.\u201d<\/p>\n

This past World Cup, he and I watched almost every game together. It was fun because he loves soccer but also because he knew so many of the countries so we could talk about them too.<\/p>\n

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Brie Bella:<\/strong> I have two kids. Birdie is 9 and Buddy is 6. Birdie is obsessed with the Dork Diary books. They\u2019re her favorite. She\u2019s also been dabbling into the Little House On The Prairie books so that she can watch the show on Netflix. It\u2019s like when she read the first Harry Potter book and then watched the first Harry Potter movie.<\/p>\n

My daughter tells me all about whatever book she\u2019s reading. She\u2019ll go into crazy detail, too, which is cute.<\/p>\n

Now that the kids read on their own, I kind of don\u2019t know exactly what they\u2019re reading. My husband and I will do research on the books, but I don\u2019t sit and read as much to them anymore unless they want me to.<\/p>\n

NB: <\/strong>I\u2019ve already binged Little House on the Prairie<\/a>. It\u2019s so good.<\/p>\n

BB: <\/strong>I really want to binge it with my daughter, but my husband told both of us, \u201cNo, she has to read all the books first.\u201d<\/p>\n

NB: <\/strong>The show doesn\u2019t go past the first book this season. It almost made me be like, \u201cNo! I want more episodes!\u201d because I know what happens but you don\u2019t even really see the third daughter. I don\u2019t remember how many daughters the Ingalls family had, but the third daughter is still a baby at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

BB: <\/strong>Well then I\u2019m going to go tell my husband so we can start watching.<\/p>\n

BB: <\/strong>My son just got into chapter books, which is incredible, but he also loves the National Geographic Kids magazines. When it comes to letting them watch stuff\u2014we don\u2019t watch a lot, but when we do, we love the National Geographic channel.<\/p>\n

BB: <\/strong>When we do\u00a0 movie night, we try to pick a movie that has a story, that doesn\u2019t move fast, and that feels long enough that they can understand that there\u2019s a beginning, middle, and an end. We just went and watched Toy Story 5, which, I have to say, I loved the meaning.<\/p>\n

Another one we loved was The One And Only Ivan, which we watched because my daughter read the book. I ended up bawling my eyes out.<\/p>\n

My husband is a big believer that it\u2019s always incredible to read a book first then watch the show or\u00a0 movie. He feels like it\u2019s good for the kids to see both sides of a story in that way, which I really love.<\/p>\n

NB: <\/strong>Recently we watched Ron\u2019s Gone Wrong on Disney+. Even though it\u2019s an older film, it was one of the first ones that Matteo got really into. It\u2019s cute because Matteo will want to watch these shows and movies and then if he doesn\u2019t want to finish it, I\u2019ll go back after he goes to bed and finish it. I\u2019m like, I think I\u2019ve watched more kid movies this past year than anything else.<\/p>\n

Ron\u2019s Gone Wrong I liked because of where we\u2019re at nowadays with technology. It had a really great meaning, especially because Matteo has been hearing a lot more about robots and different types of technology lately.<\/p>\n

BB: <\/strong>I loved The Baby-Sitters Club series on Netflix<\/a> and Birdie got really into those books. She went through them fast. My daughter is the type who, when she comes out for breakfast every morning, she has a book in her hand and as I\u2019m cooking, she\u2019ll sit and read. Even at school, they say Birdie a lot of times will bring a book out to recess so if she doesn\u2019t feel like playing, she\u2019ll sit under a tree and read.<\/p>\n

I told my husband Bryan that I feel like she\u2019s going to be an author one day because she comes up with so many stories. She loves writing and she loves reading.<\/p>\n

NB: <\/strong>My son\u2019s a builder. When he\u2019s watching something, he\u2019ll leave in the middle of it because he wants to go build something for whatever\u2019s on. Like, if it talks about a certain place or a certain character, he\u2019ll want to go build that with his Legos. He\u2019s totally an engineer. That is how his brain works.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been playing with things like that since he was a baby. He used to like to take things apart, or for a long time he was into seeing how wheels moved. He\u2019d always have his face on the ground, wanting to look at his toys\u2019 landing gear.<\/p>\n

If something has a train or plane in it, he\u2019ll want to watch it. He loved Big Hero Six because it was about a kid building a robot. That\u2019s a sad one too. I always cry.<\/p>\n

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Photo: A. Perez Meca\/Europa Press via Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

BB: <\/strong>The kids will always throw out different songs when we\u2019re in the car and we\u2019ll go through different phases when we\u2019re listening to all different genres of music, but it\u2019s all still kind of the same music I\u2019d choose to listen to. Then they\u2019ll hear songs either from movies or shows or from their friends\u2019 houses, and so we\u2019ll get this very interesting blend of songs. As of late, Ella Langley has been a big hit in our car and they\u2019re obsessed with Benson Boone.<\/p>\n

NB: <\/strong>My son is obsessed with Coldplay\u2019s \u201cViva La Vida.\u201d He sings it probably 15 times a day.<\/p>\n

When we\u2019re driving, he\u2019ll always request Spanish music. He\u2019ll ask for Omar\u2019s \u201cDanzo Kaduro,\u201d which I can\u2019t even say right. Shakira is another one of his favorites. One day he said, \u201cMom, can you play the Gipsy Kings?\u201d And I was like, \u201cThe Gipsy Kings? How do you know the Gipsy Kings?,\u201d but he loves them. He always asks for \u201cBaila Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a Latin lover. His dad does a lot of Latin ballroom dancing, so I feel like that\u2019s where he\u00a0 heard most of it but he also goes to a school where it\u2019s Spanish speaking and so half of the day is English and the other half is Spanish. They do a lot of dancing, too, like they do folklorico all the time in school. At their graduation this year, the kids were dressed up in sombreros and mariachi outfits and they did a whole folklorico dance. Matteo will always come home and tell me how that\u2019s all he wants to do for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s just very drawn to all of that. Brie and I are Mexican and when Matteo talks to my dad on the phone, my dad will speak Spanish to him and he just lights up. He smiles ear to ear, he thinks my dad is the coolest thing ever.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually funny because he calls my dad \u201cPool Tata,\u201d and I\u2019m always like \u201cWhy Pool Tata,\u201d but it\u2019s because my dad wears his shirt open so Matteo just always assumes he\u2019s going to the pool.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of retailer\n <\/p>\n

BB: <\/strong>Our family is obsessed with board games, so we\u2019re very into Catan. That\u2019s our favorite one, but then a new one that we\u2019ve loved in the house is called Blokus, which is also a lot of fun. We love Monopoly, too. I think we mostly love games where you take time to think.<\/p>\n

NB: <\/strong>Usually when Matteo is with me, we\u2019ll go days without him using his iPad but in the times that he does ask, I\u2019ll feel like \u201cOkay, it\u2019s fine.\u201d His speech teacher really helped me because she said, \u201cyou just put on a timer,\u201d so I\u2019ll give him 30 minutes and it\u2019s crazy because when he sees the timer go off, he never argues. He just hands it over, like \u201cOkay, cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re YouTube watchers when we\u2019re using the iPad, so that\u2019s where he gets to watch all his train videos and stuff about airplanes. I used to put NASA videos on and he loved watching how they would talk about building rockets and I would sit there and think, \u201cThis is boring.\u201d But he loves it.<\/p>\n

NB: <\/strong>Right now, Matteo is into train simulators. There\u2019s a few games where you build your trains and then it\u2019s as if he\u2019s the conductor and he can take his train out. He really has to use his brain to think about how to put things together. And I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s a good thing or a bad thing, but I let him do those too.<\/p>\n

But what I love about my son is that he\u2019s also not obsessed with those kinds of things. He\u2019ll start to do stuff on a screen but then he\u2019ll walk away. He loves being outside. He loves being in the garden beds and getting dirty. He has imagination. He has this playroom and he will just go in there and build stuff.<\/p>\n

He also likes to do what I call science projects, but I\u2019ll let him freely go into my kitchen when he wants. He\u2019s always putting things together. The other day, he made this thing and he really wanted to bake it, and I was like, \u201cSure.\u201d We ate it at the end and it actually didn\u2019t taste too bad.<\/p>\n

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