Celebrity engagements: All the female celebrities who have proposed to their partners including Rita Ora, Kristen Bell and Sarah Snook
It has long been a tradition for men to propose marriage to women, on bended knee.
Then came the feminism movement through the 1960s to ’80s, and with it, the idea a women could propose to a man.
It’s often a thing done on a leap year – with February 29 the key date once every four years – but some female celebrities have thrown the rulebook out and gotten engaged on their own terms.
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This includes actresses Kristen Bell and Sarah Snook, singers Rita Ora and Pink, and even TV icon Judge Judy is among those who have been the one to pop the question to their respective spouses.
Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg is still with her husband, media executive Barry Diller, 24 years after they wed following her proposal, but not all have survived the distance – like actress Billie Piper’s first marriage to UK radio personality Chris Evans.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the famous female faces to propose to their man.
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Rita Ora
British singer Rita Ora went the whole shebang with her proposal to New Zealand director Taika Waititi in 2022.
The Anywhere songstress rented a hotel room in Palm Springs, California and decked it out with heart-shaped balloons and cake, and even got rings made.
Waititi’s reaction on walking in was “what the hell?”, Ora said during an appearance on Begin Again with Davina McCall.
She got down on one knee and he was so surprised he said “what is going on?” in such a way she thought he was about to turn her down.
But the Oscar-winning director said “absolutely” and the couple wed “just at home” a few months later in August.
However, the singer only showed off her wedding band and engagement ring for the first time in February 2023, during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
Sarah Snook
Australian actress Sarah Snook has a fairytale love story for the ages.
After spending lockdown in Melbourne with one of her best friends, comedian Dave Lawson, they realised they’d fallen in love while quarantining together.
The Succession star proposed to Lawson on Halloween in 2020 but hasn’t given too much more away about it.
“At the beginning of the pandemic last year, I got locked down in Melbourne with one of my best mates and we fell in love,” she told Vogue Australia in 2021.
“We’ve been friends since 2014, lived together, travelled together, always excited to see each other, but totally platonic. We’ve just never been single at the same time.
“I proposed and we got married in February in my backyard.”
The couple wed in a small, private backyard ceremony in Brooklyn, New York in 2021, before welcoming their daughter in May 2023.
P!nk
Singer Pink is known for doing things differently in the music biz and when it came to her relationship, it was no different.
The Raise Your Glass singer raised something different – a sign for her boyfriend of four years, motocross rider Carey Hart, to see during a competition in California.
“Will you marry me?” was written on a pit board as he came into the third lap.
When Hart carried on racing, Pink held up another sign saying, “I’m serious”.
He then pulled over and accepted her proposal, with the pair tying the knot in 2006.
“I knew within the first few weeks after meeting her that I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life,” he later told People magazine.
The couple separated briefly in 2008 before reconciling a year later.
They’re still going strong almost 20 years on and share two children – daughter Willow, 14 and son Jameson, eight.
Jodie Turner-Smith
Dawson’s Creek alum Joshua Jackson spoke about how nice it felt to be proposed to, after Jodie Turner-Smith popped the question on New Year’s Eve 2019 in Nicaragua.
“It was very beautiful and incredibly romantic,” he told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show in 2021.
“We were walking down the beach and she asked me to marry her.”
Jackson said “yes” to the proposal and, at the time, called it “the best choice I ever made” but had asked Turner-Smith to let him propose.
“I’m still old school enough that I said [when Turner-Smith proposed], ‘This is a yes, but you have to give me the opportunity’,” he told Refinery29.
“She has a biological father and a stepdad, who’s the man who raised her. [I said], ‘You have to give me the opportunity to ask both of those men for your hand in marriage’.
“And then, ‘I would like the opportunity to re-propose those to you and do it the old fashioned way down on bended knee.’ So that’s actually how the story ended up.”
The couple welcomed a daughter in April 2020 and later split in October 2023, with their divorce being finalised in May this year.
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Kristen Bell
Kristen Bell, the star of rom-com Nobody Wants This, knew exactly what she wanted when she met comedian Dax Shepard at a mutual friend’s party in 2007.
The couple quietly got engaged in late 2009 before announcing their engagement on the Grammys red carpet in February 2010.
However, they decided to delay their nuptials until same-sex marriage was legalised in California.
They welcomed their first daughter in March 2013, with Bell then proposing to Shepard via Twitter after same-sex marriage was allowed in June.
They tied the knot in October.
They welcomed their second daughter in December 2014 and are still together, having just celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary with some controversy.
The female stars who popped the question to their partners
Britney Spears
Britney Spears and Kevin Federline married in September 2004, after just three months of dating.
But the Toxic singer popped the question weeks into their romance, on a flight in 2004.
Federline originally turned down the proposal, believing he needed to be the one to propose and did so in August, with the couple marrying the following month at a surprise wedding that had been billed as an engagement party to friends and family.
Ultimately, the couple had two sons before splitting three years later.
Their marriage is now back in the headlines after Federline’s memoir was released last week.
Elizabeth Taylor
The Hollywood icon was famously engaged 10 times across her lifetime and had eight husbands – but there was only one she proposed to.
British actor Michael Wilding was 22 years Taylor’s senior – he was 41, she was 19 – but that didn’t bother the star, who had previously been married to Conrad Hilton Jr (Paris Hilton’s great-uncle) when she was 18.
The actress reportedly proposed to him in London and picked out her own engagement ring, a diamond and sapphire number.
They married in February 1952, before splitting five years later in 1957, after welcoming two sons, Michael and Christopher.
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