Artem Chigvintsev is firing back at Nikki Garcia (Bella) in their ugly divorce, claiming she completely made up domestic violence allegations that landed him behind bars -- allegations she detailed in a restraining order she obtained Monday.
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00:00We broke a couple of stories yesterday and today
00:04about Nikki Bella, Nikki Garcia, she's known by now,
00:08that she got a restraining order last Monday
00:11against her estranged husband, Artem.
00:13And Artem, remember, was arrested in late August
00:17for domestic violence, although the DA decided
00:20there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute him,
00:22they got into it at their home.
00:25Police responded.
00:27In front of their four-year-old son, Mateo.
00:30There are now two very different versions of this.
00:32We should say Nikki got a temporary restraining order.
00:36There's gonna be a hearing later this month.
00:38But what she is alleging is that he developed
00:44some really significant anger issues after he was fired
00:48from Dancing with the Stars, and it manifested itself
00:52at their home, often in front of their four-year-old Mateo.
00:56The picture she's painting is that on August 29th,
00:59he was making breakfast for the kid,
01:01and over-toasted, according to Nikki, the English muffin.
01:05They get into a fight, she apparently admits to,
01:09throwing the toddler's shoes at him,
01:10but she says these are light shoes,
01:12it hit him in the leg, it was no big deal.
01:13Runs upstairs, then they really get into it,
01:15and Artem, according to Nikki, tackled her to the ground
01:19and pinned her to the ground for 20 to 30 seconds.
01:22In front of Mateo.
01:23In front of Mateo, who was very upset,
01:24yelling, mommy, mommy, and then Artem went
01:26and called the cops and told the cops
01:29about the shoe incident to sort of frame the narrative.
01:31This is what Nikki thinks went on when he called the cops
01:33and said, she threw a pair of shoes at me.
01:35He thinks, she thinks that he was trying
01:37to get out in front of what really happened.
01:39Okay, now Artem is telling a very different story.
01:41Artem is saying it was Nikki who was the aggressor here
01:46and attacked him, and he filed a document
01:50showing what he says are the injuries
01:52that he suffered to the back of his neck,
01:55to his elbow, and his hand.
01:57Now, what's interesting about this
01:59is that Artem called the police,
02:01and then called the police and said,
02:02don't bother calling the police, not necessary.
02:04But the police came anyway
02:06because it was a domestic violence call.
02:08They came a few hours later.
02:09They observed what was going on with her and him.
02:13They did not arrest her.
02:15Right, and they said they saw injuries on her,
02:18visible marks on her arm.
02:19Had they seen the injuries that he's showing now,
02:23and again, I'm just making a general point.
02:26Had they seen those injuries at the time?
02:28Yes.
02:29Standard operating procedure for cops in California
02:32is you arrest the other person,
02:35and you then ask questions later.
02:37Right.
02:38That's the way it works with domestic violence.
02:39Right, and despite some of the jokes
02:41and the way people don't take this seriously often,
02:43men can obviously be the victims
02:45of domestic violence, period.
02:46So the question then is,
02:48if he suffered those injuries at her hands,
02:52why did the police let Perskate and arrest him?
02:57And that's kind of odd.
02:59Right.
02:59Hi, I'm Chris from Houston,
03:00and I just wanna say that domestic violence
03:03is a very serious issue.
03:04It's a huge accusation,
03:06and no matter who is doing what,
03:07the child is the one that should be protected.
03:10They need to seek some professional help
03:12so that they can both parent this child
03:14because he's gonna be scarred from this forever.
03:17Yeah, it's a terrible thing for a kid to see.
03:18Right.
03:19By the way, to button this up,
03:21this marriage is over.
03:22Nikki filed for divorce
03:23and listed the date of separation
03:25as the date of that altercation.