Meet John Cena's First Girlfriend Since Nikki Bella, Shay Shariatzadeh

It's official! Although the couple has been linked together since March, John Cena and his new girlfriend made their first red carpet appearance together at the premiere of Playing with Fire in New York City. Meet John Cena's new girlfriend, Shay Shariatzadeh, his first long term girlfriend since his engagement to Nikki Bella ended in 2018.

Shay isn't a model or an actress or in show business. She's actually a product manager for the Motorola Solutions company, Avigilon in Vancouver. After studying Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of British Columbia, Shay worked as an electrical engineer and then an application engineer for Alpha Technologies. 

She made her way to Avigilon to pursue a career in product management. According to an interview she did with her company to promote International Women's Day, she credits having found a mentor early in her career for her passion for product management. Her brother was also a big reason for her pursuing engineering in the first place.

"I have always enjoyed math and physics," she said. "My brother studied engineering in school, and I remember one day he came home with a project and it was an autonomous car — and that was it!"

Although her mentor and her brother helped push her in the engineering direction, Shay says her mother has always been her biggest inspiration. 

"The biggest lesson she taught me was to be independent and fight for the things I want in life," she said. "She is a surgeon who worked day and night so we could have a good life. While she was at the peak of her career, she gave it all up to move her family to Canada to give us a better future. She is the reason I fight to be the best version of myself, to be kind and to never give up."

John and Shay were first spotted together back in March while John was filming Playing with Fire in Vancouver. But up until the New York premiere of the film, they were keeping their relationship pretty under wraps. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, John finally opened up about the relationship. 

In talking about the new film, he said, "What's truly special about this one is that, no matter what projects I'm involved in in the future, this one will always have a special meaning because I got to film a special project and meet someone special."

When pressed about just how the couple met, John said that he noticed a group of beautiful women at a restaurant while he was in Vancouver filming and he couldn't take his eyes off of Shay. He made the decision to go up to the group and asked Shay out immediately. 

John's ex fiancée Nikki Bella addressed Shay and John's relationship in her podcast back in April, saying that, although she was heartbroken to see the headlines about them, she ultimately just wants John to be happy. “As long as John is happy, I’m happy,” she said. “But let me tell you, she breaks his heart? I will rack-attack her in a heartbeat. Still protective of that man.”