Personal life
Batista's father, David Michael Bautista, is Filipino and his mother,
Donna Raye Bautista, a lesbian,[89] is Greek. His grandparents were
also from the Philippines as his grandfather served in the military,
worked as a taxi driver, barber, and other odd jobs to feed the
family. Batista says he is not ashamed to admit he came from a poor
family.[90] He has publicly admitted to having a hard life where, as
before he was age nine, three murders occurred at his front lawn.[89]
As young as age 13, he was stealing automobiles.[91] By age 17,
Batista was considered estranged from his parents and on his own,[92]
despite admitting later that "I am proud of my parents. They are good,
honest, hard-working folks. They taught me the values of working
hard."[91] Batista became a regular bouncer for clubs until he was
arrested after a fight that left two badly injured patrons, one of
which could be found lying in the street.[92] After a trial, Batista
was sentenced to a years' probation.[92] Batista was also a
lifeguard[89] before he had dreams of becoming a bodybuilder.[92] He
credits bodybuilding as possibly saving his life.[89]
Batista was married to a woman named Glenda in the early 1990's and
had two daughters with her, Keilana (born in 1990) and Athena (born in
1992) before divorcing.[93][94] Batista married his second wife Angie
on October 13, 1998, however they divorced in 2006. Before the age of
40, Batista had already become a grandfather of two grandsons: Jacob &
Aiden by Keilani, his first daughter.[95][89] During his marriage with
Angie, Batista became an avid collector of vintage metal lunchboxes.
He admits his favorite is the 1967 Green Hornet lunch box, as it has
Bruce Lee on it.[96] This collection started when he bought Angie an
ET lunchbox and she did not want to break it, so he bought a second
one.[97] Batista revealed that he and Angie were separated in the
August 2006 edition of WWE Magazine.[98] He later revealed, in his
autobiography, a relationship with WWE Diva Melina after the divorce
from his wife in 2006, which led to a brief angle on SmackDown! during
a feud with MNM.[99] Shortly after, he dated 2006 Diva Search
contestant Rebecca DiPietro[100] before resuming a relationship with
Melina.[101]
On October 16, 2007 his autobiography "Batista Unleashed", a WWE Book,
was released.[102] In an interview about the book, Batista claims "I
didn't want to tell my story unless it was honest," and that "you have
to go through three sets of lawyers: Simon & Schuster lawyers, WWE
lawyers, my lawyers. Everything now being the way it is, you can be
sued for the simplest thing."[103] One source of controversy was the
mentioning of Chris Benoit, who was almost completely removed due to
controversy. Batista responded saying "I loved the guy. I despise what
he did, but that doesn't erase him from my life. I fought to keep him
in there and glad they did."[103] When asked about his ex-wife, Angie,
he says "[we] have really become close again, which we really haven't
been in years. I really learned a lot about her, and she learned a lot
about me from reading the book. She actually saw things from a
different perspective from reading the book. So that was definitely
therapeutic."[103]
He has numerous tattoos, including a large Chinese dragon on his back,
red Kanji lettering on his upper left biceps which says "Angel" in
tribute to his former wife Angie, a signature design on his upper
right biceps, and a small Sun on his stomach which encircles his belly
button.[104] He recently added a tattoo on his arm of the flags of the
Philippines and Greece merged into one.[91]