After Nikki Bella retained the Divas Championship over Naomi at Extreme Rules on April 26, Nikki started a feud with Naomi after she aligned with the returning Tamina to even the odds against The Bellas. This led to a tag team match between the two teams at Payback on May 17, which Naomi and Tamina won. At Elimination Chamber on May 31, Nikki retained her title against Naomi and Paige in a triple threat match, with Brie Bella banned from ringside.
In June, The Bella Twins became villains once again by employing Twin Magic, which helped Nikki retain the title against Paige on the June 1 episode of Raw and at Money in the Bank on June 14. During the feud with Paige, Alicia Fox allied with them to form Team Bella. At The Beast in the East on July 4, Nikki retained the title against Paige and Tamina.
After weeks of Team Bella outnumbering Paige, Naomi and Tamina, Stephanie McMahon called for a "revolution" in the WWE Divas division and introduced the debuting Charlotte and Becky Lynch as Paige's allies while NXT Women's Champion Sasha Banks debuted as an ally to Naomi and Tamina, which led to a brawl between the three teams. Nikki then lost to Charlotte in a tag team match on the August 3 episode of Raw and to Banks on the August 17 episode of Raw in a non-title match. On August 23, the three teams faced off at SummerSlam in a three-team elimination match in which Team Bella first eliminated Team B.A.D. before Team PCB's win.
On the September 14 episode of Raw, Nikki defended her title against Charlotte, who pinned Brie after the twins had switched places to win the match, but she retained the championship since the title cannot change hands by disqualification and in the process became the new longest reigning Divas Champion in history, surpassing AJ Lee's previous record of 295 days.
On September 20, Nikki dropped the championship to Charlotte at Night of Champions, ending her reign at 301 days, and failing to regain the title in a rematch at Hell in a Cell on October 25. Shortly after, Nikki went on a hiatus from both television and in-ring competition due to a neck injury which would require surgery, thus ending Team Bella.