Stephanie Nicole Chigvintsev, known professionally as Nikki Garcia, is an American television personality and retired professional wrestler. She is best known for her tenure in WWE from 2007 to 2022, in which she performed under the ring name Nikki Bella alongside her twin sister, Brie, as The Bella Twins. She is currently the host of the game show, Barmageddon.
Born sixteen minutes before her twin sister, Brianna, to parents Jon Garcia and Kathy Colace, Garcia-Colace was born in San Diego, California, and raised on a farm in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona. Keen soccer enthusiasts, she along with her twin sister played for the Scottsdale club in elementary school. She graduated from Chaparral High School in 2002. She then returned to San Diego for college where she played soccer for Grossmont College, but relocated to Los Angeles a year later, where she worked as a waitress at the Mondrian Hotel while trying to find an agent.
She then started modeling, acting, and doing promotional work. She made her first national TV appearance on the Fox reality show Meet My Folks. Following this appearance, the Garcia twins were hired to be the World Cup Twins for Budweiser and were photographed holding the World Cup trophy. Nikki and her sister Brie were contestants in the 2006 "International Body Doubles twins search". Nikki and Brie later participated in the 2006 WWE Diva Search, but they did not make the cut.
