Inside The Life of John Cena’s Ex-Wife, Elizabeth Huberdeau

Elizabeth Huberdeau is an American socialite best known as the first wife of popular professional wrestler, actor, television presenter, and former rapper John Cena. The couple, who first met in school, was married for nearly three years from 2009 to 2012. It caused a media sensation when Cena suddenly filed for divorce and his wife decided to contest the filing legally, but they quickly resolved the issue amicably out of court. Elizabeth had been active on social media, particularly Facebook, for a long time until a few years back, when she went under the radar. She reportedly works as a real estate agent in Florida and is in a relationship with a man named Eli Ayoub.

She Was Raised by a Police Officer Father

Elizabeth Jean Huberdeau was born on September 28, 1979 in West Newbury, Massachusetts, the United States. She is the eldest daughter of her parents, Gene R. Huberdeau and Elizabeth A. Huberdeau née Jones, and has a younger brother named Adam and a younger sister named Norma Barone. Her father served as a police officer for the city of Haverhill for 34 years before retiring in 2009. She is of Irish origin from her father’s side. She reportedly studied at Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, before enrolling into Springfield Technical Community College. She shares a close bond with her family and can often be seen with her family members in pictures shared by herself or her brother. Her brother worked at the Groveland Fire Department and at Feeney Brothers Utility Service, while her sister is married to Leonard Barone and resides in Florida.

She and Cena Were High School Sweethearts

Elizabeth Jean Huberdeau first met John Cena, two years her senior, when they were both high school students in Massachusetts. While both of them also attended Springfield College, after the news of their relationship was made public, several outlets reported them as high school sweethearts. However, their relationship did not go smoothly throughout all those years. They even went through a breakup as Cena began to build his career in wrestling in the early 2000s, during which period he dated former WWE Superstars Lisa Marie Varon a.k.a. Victoria and Mickie James. Cena first revealed being engaged in January 2009 in an interview with Seattle Post-Intelligencer while promoting his 2009 movie 12 Rounds. He told the interviewer, “I’m gonna get married this year”, and tied the knot with Elizabeth five months later in a private ceremony in Boston, Massachusetts on July 11, 2009. Following marriage, he affectionately called her “Liz Cena”, which became a popular moniker for her.

Her Marriage to Cena Ended within Three Years

Despite being teenage sweethearts, Elizabeth and Cena ended their marriage in less than three years. It was Cena who “unexpectedly filed to end their 3-year marriage” in Hillsborough County in May 2012, which made Elizabeth feel like she was “blindsided”. In fact, she responded to the filing by saying that his petition should be dismissed. For one, she claimed that it didn’t bring “a proper dissolution of marriage action” against her as it referred to her as Elizabeth Huberdeau, and not Elizabeth Cena. Furthermore, she mentioned that he didn’t attach a copy of their prenuptial agreement, which invalidated the filing. She also contradicted his statement that there were no common marital properties.

She Accused Cena of Infidelity

While Elizabeth’s estranged husband Cena had a pre-nuptial agreement from 2009, which allowed him to take back all the expensive gifts he had given to his wife, she decided to challenge the agreement claiming that “Cena had been messing around during the marriage”. She hired famous lawyer Raymond Rafool, known for representing Hulk Hogan’s ex-wife Linda, seeking 70% of the wrestler’s assets valued at 18 million at the time. Rafool told TMZ at that they were looking for concrete proof of Cena’s infidelity. However, just as the legal battle was taking a nasty turn, the couple was able to “work things out privately” by July 18, 2012, when they finalized their divorce “amicably”. The terms of the settlement were not made public.

Reasons Given for the Divorce

While Elizabeth was clearly not expecting a sudden end to her marriage to Cena, who began dating fellow wrestler Nikki Bella later the same year, he has blamed his hectic schedule and his dedication to his profession. Moreover, in early 2013, Cena had claimed that his personal and professional troubles were responsible for his loss to The Rock the previous year and the WWE also used a TMZ headline of Cena’s divorce from Elizabeth in a cheap attempt to gain public sympathy before his rematch with the wrestler. However, much later in 2018, shortly after proposing to Bella on the ring, Cena revealed the real reason why his first marriage didn’t work during an interview on the hit105 Stay, Abby & Matt radio show: “I tried marriage once and I realized my WWE marriage was the one that was going to survive.” Interestingly, Cena famously believes that he is not yet ready to have kids, which eventually caused Bella to break off the engagement one month before their scheduled marriage.

She Has a New Boyfriend

Elizabeth was mentioned with the surname Cena in her father’s obituary, published a day after his death on October 15, 2015, revealing that she had retained her ex-husband’s surname at least until that point. However, she had already begun sharing pictures with a man named Eli Ayoub on her Facebook profile as far back as 2013. Since then, several pictures of the couple spending quality time together have surfaced on the internet. However, her Facebook profile has not been updated in the recent years, and as such, the current state of their relationship is not known. On the professional front, she previously worked at the Fly Faraway travel agency. Based on Facebook profiles, it has also been reported that Elizabeth now works as a real estate agent in Florida, but the authenticity of the claims could not be verified.