Nikki Garcia’s son Matteo is shaping up to be a cowboy based on his current taste in music — and he has become Blake Shelton’s No. 1 fan.
“Matteo is obsessed with the Barmageddon theme song now,” Garcia, 39, exclusively told Us Weekly on Monday, November 13, while promoting her and sister Brie Garcia’s latest cohosting gig on Prime Video’s Twin Love. “I don’t, of course, let him watch the show. He is not even up that late to watch it.”
Nikki also hosts Barmageddon, the USA Network game show where Shelton, 47, and Carson Daly enlist celebrity friends to face off in bar games in Nashville. While Nikki and husband Artem Chigvintsev’s 3-year-old son doesn’t watch the competition series, Matteo does like the sound of country music.
“At this age, you start to play a lot of different kinds of music for your kids once they’re out of the ‘Wheels on the Bus’ [phase] and all that,” Nikki explained. “He’s very drawn to Blake’s voice and to Zach Bryan‘s voice and he wants to hear that kind of music. So, he totally has his own Barmageddon vibes.”
In addition to channeling his inner cowboy, Matteo is hooked on watching his dad, 41, compete on Dancing With the Stars. Chigvintsev is currently partnered with The Bachelorette’s Charity Lawson for season 32 of the ABC series.
“He’s just obsessed with his dad dancing. He thinks dances on the moon,” Nikki gushed. “And he thinks he goes to space to dance and it’s so cute. But he looks at him in awe of like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe he could do that.’”
While Nikki’s son is focused on his dad’s career, her niece Birdie is all about the Bella Twins and their latest ventures. (Brie shares Birdie, 6, and son Buddy, 3, with husband Bryan Danielson.)
“She has this Bella Twin shirt [and] she wants to wear it everywhere,” Brie, also 39, exclusively told Us of her daughter. “And I’m like, ‘We just can’t wear that everywhere.’ And she’s like, ‘But I’m so proud of you and Dodo.’ It’s really cute. So, she definitely knows [what we do].”
Despite retiring from wrestling — and leaving the WWE in March — both Nikki and Brie have kept themselves busy as mothers and now as cohosts of Twin Love. The social experiment, which premieres this month, highlights the love lives of identical twins as the siblings are split up while on their search for romance.
“It definitely was a no-brainer to host this show,” Brie told Us. “Nikki and I, we actually were like, ‘Wow, we could have used a lot of this advice or help.’ So we definitely felt [for] the twins. We had been on that journey before marrying our spouses. We understand what they’re going through.”
Nikki, for her part, teased how wild it was watching the twins be separated and then reunited as they navigated their own love lives.
“I was amazed with the growth that so many of these twins had. And then they blossomed. They were proud of themselves and then they were shining, and they were just living in their moment without their twin,” she revealed. “Then it was almost watching a whole other show when you put them back together. It was truly brilliant. And I just loved being front row for it all.”
Twin Love premieres on Prime Video Friday, November 17.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
