John Cena

John Felix Anthony Cena was born in West Newbury, Massachusetts, on April 23, 1977, to Carol (née Lupien) and former Chaotic Wrestling ring announcer John Joseph Cena. His mother is of English and French-Canadian descent, while his father has Italian ancestry. He has one older brother named Dan and three younger brothers named Matt, Steve, and Sean. He was raised Roman Catholic. His maternal grandfather was baseball player Tony Lupien, while his maternal great-grandfather was businessman Ulysses J. Lupien. He is also a cousin of computer scientist Natalie Enright Jerger. A childhood fan of wrestling, he would create championship belts out of cardboard for himself and his brothers. He was teased and beaten up while in school, prompting him to ask his parents for a weightlifting bench at the age of 12.

Cena was educated at Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, before transferring to the private prep boarding school Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. He then attended Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he was an NCAA Division III All-American center and football team captain. He graduated in 1999 with a degree in exercise physiology and body movement, after which he pursued a bodybuilding career and worked as a limousine driver. He also worked in the store area of Gold's Gym.In addition to his wrestling career, Cena is a rapper. He performed his fifth WWE theme song, "Basic Thuganomics", and it was featured on the WWE soundtrack album WWE Originals. He also recorded a song, "Untouchables", for the company's next soundtrack album WWE ThemeAddict: The Music, Vol. 6. He collaborated on a remix for the song "H-U-S-T-L-E" along with Murs, E-40, and Chingo Bling.

Cena's debut album, You Can't See Me, was recorded with his cousin Tha Trademarc. It features, among other songs, his entrance theme, "The Time is Now", and the single "Bad, Bad Man", for which a music video was made that parodied 1980s culture, including the television show The A-Team. A video was also made for the second single, "Right Now", that premiered on the August 8, 2005, episode of WWE Monday Night Raw. Cena and Tha Trademarc were later featured on a track by The Perceptionists called "Champion Scratch". Cena was featured on T-Boz's postponed album, Still Cool.

In October 2014, Cena was featured on two songs with rapper Wiz Khalifa for his two singles "All Day" and "Breaks" for the soundtrack to the WWE 2K15 video game.

Cena is a self-taught pianist, starting to learn the instrument in 2016. In 2022, he performed a piano rendition of Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home" for the Peacemaker soundtrack, playing it onscreen as his Peacemaker character in a poignant scene to close the episode "Murn After Reading".