Traditionally, in heterosexual relationships, the honor of proposing falls to the man. However, to quote Schoolhouse Rock!, “Who says women can’t propose?”
Here are 17 famous women who proposed to their boyfriends:
1.
Rita Ora proposed to Taika Waititi in 2022. She told the podcast Begin Again with Davine McCall, “I rented a hotel room in Palm Springs. A really nice fancy one, filled it up with balloons — heart-shaped balloons and a heart-shaped cake, because I’m basically doing what I would have wanted for mine. He walks into the room, and he’s like, ‘What the hell? Is it Valentine’s Day?’ I’m like ‘No!’ …Anyway, I get down on one knee, and he was just like, ‘What is happening?'”
She said that she worried, “Maybe he doesn’t want it. Maybe it’s okay to just be in a relationship. Which was fine with me, too. But I just wanted to lock him down.” However, Taika answered, “Absolutely. What the hell? Get up.” They got married that August.
2.
After four years together, Pink proposed to motocross racer Carey Hart during the Pro 250 class finals. She wrote, “Will you marry me?” on a pit board and held it out in front of him as he made his third lap. At first, he didn’t stop, so she added, “Serious!” to her sign. The next time he saw it, he pulled over and accepted her proposal.
They got married at the beginning of 2006.
3.
Jodie Turner-Smith proposed to Joshua Jackson — who was actually her first crush. He told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, “She asked me. On New Year’s Eve…we were in Nicaragua. It was very beautiful, incredibly romantic. We were walking down the beach, and she asked me to marry her. There was like a preamble, there was a lead up to it… I did not know, but she was quite adamant. And she was right. This is the best choice I ever made.”
The couple got married in 2019, but Jodie filed for divorce in 2023, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
4.
During the 2020 lockdown in Melbourne, Sarah Snook and her best friend David Lawson “got stuck in a house together, and [they] just sort of fell in love.” On Halloween, she popped the question. She told the Telegraph, “Nothing spooky, it just turned out that way.”
Four months later, they got married with only “[her] housemates and the celebrant and a photographer, and a friend and partner who were [their] witnesses” in attendance. The growth of their relationship from friendship to marriage was unexpected. Sarah said, “It’s still such a shock and surprise for us really, and we still get a kick out of it.”
5.
Kat Dennings and Andrew W.K. proposed to each other simultaneously. On The Drew Barrymore Show, she said, “We had a special moment that makes me believe in magic. We were doing kissing, and we had, like, a shared feeling. I felt this intense…thing that I was like, ‘This is my person. This is it. I can’t live without him. This is the man I’m supposed to be with.’ And we looked at each other, and we both proposed at the same time. Not planned. No knee down — I don’t even remember what happened after that. We just were like ‘Should we get married?’ And ‘Yes.’ I just burst into tears.”
“It was, like, I never thought I had it in me, you know, because I’m kind of a toughie. But I did. I wept happy tears. I felt this sense of relief that I’ve done it. I made it through the wilderness and found this incredible person, and yeah. No one believes me. But I assure you, that’s what happened. I’m so glad I waited until I found the right person. Everybody goes through this nightmarish time of life looking for a person — or not. Whatever floats your boat. But I feel very lucky. He’s the best,” she said. They got married in 2023.
6.
Britney Spears proposed to Kevin Federline, but he declined because he thought he should be the one to propose. Per Us Weekly, he said, “It wasn’t like a ‘Will you marry me?’ It wasn’t that straightforward. The way she said it was kind of beating around the bush. Still, I was taken by surprise. I thought the guy was supposed to ask the girl. So a couple of minutes went by, and then I asked her. I wasn’t really thinking about asking her right away, but I did without reservation. I’d known for a while that she’s The One.”
Three months after their relationship began, they had a surprise wedding at their small engagement party. Britney told People, “I just thought it would be too much if we had done it when we were supposed to. It became this huge thing, and I was like, ‘What are we waiting for? We know this is the real thing, why not just do it now?’ That’s why I wanted to sneak and do it our little way.” However, she filed for divorce in 2006.
7.
Judge Judy (aka Judy Sheindlin) proposed to Jerry Sheindlin because she was frustrated with his lack of commitment. She told Dujour, “I did propose to him. I said to him, ‘Where is this relationship going?’ And he tried to weasel out of it, with his, ‘Well, you know, why do we have to get married?’ Whatever. He finally capitulated. I told him to pick a date. He picked Flag Day.”
They got married in 1978, but they divorced after her father’s death in 1990. In the book What Makes a Marriage Last, Judy said, “I said, ‘I’ve been taking care of you for 12 years, now it’s your turn to take care of me.’ And he was totally unaccustomed to that role. I wasn’t asking for anything unreasonable, and he wasn’t being unreasonable saying that he really didn’t know how to do that. He was 55 and had lived a certain way all his life. He couldn’t even conceptualize taking over that role. He just couldn’t.” She told Jerry, “Unless you change, we can’t stay together.”
Jerry said, “I missed her presence the very first week that we were separated. It was the first time in years that we didn’t get to see each other every single day. It was such a strange experience.” However, a year later, he asked her to dinner, and they got back together.
They got remarried in 1991, and Jerry proposed the second time around. He said, “I picked her up from work at family court one day, and we were walking through downtown Manhattan. Suddenly I said to her, ‘This is silly. I’m uncomfortable being with you all the time and not being married to you. Let’s get married again.’ She said, ‘Well, how are we going to do that?’ I said, ‘The clerk’s office is right up the street. We can go in and get a license…'”
8.
Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard both proposed to each other. Initially, he didn’t believe in marriage, but he asked her to marry him in 2009 because he knew how important it was to her. Dax told People, “Ultimately, I was like, ‘Well, I’m doing it because my partner wants that. Forget the tradition or history of marriage as a concept, you knowing I was doing something that I didn’t want to do because I loved you was a big sign for you.”
They decided to hold off on getting married until same-sex marriage was legalized in California. Kristen told PrideSource, “What are we gonna do? Have a party and be like, ‘Look at us celebrating this thing you can’t do?’ That’s fucking putrid. Like, 90 percent of our friends are gay!” In June 2013, the Supreme Court deemed the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional. So, Kristen tweeted, “@daxshepard1 will you marry me? Xo #marriageequality #loveislove.” Dax tweeted, “DOMA is dead. Prop 8 is dead. Now let’s bring my big, gay marriage to @IMKristenBell to Life!!!!”
Jimmy Kimmel gifted the couple a pillow to celebrate. Kristen told Oprah Daily, “It’s embroidered with my tweet asking my husband, Dax Shepard, to marry me, as well as his tweet saying yes. We’d waited to get married because half our friends are gay, and we didn’t think it was appropriate to have a wedding until they could, too. The morning DOMA was squashed in the Supreme Court, I proposed on Twitter.” The couple tied the knot in October 2013.
9.
Olympic skier Lindsay Vonn and NHL player P.K. Subban also proposed to each other. In August 2019, he asked her to marry him with an emerald ring. He told Vogue, “I got the ring and said, ‘You know what? I’m just going to do it [at] home.’ Everything kind of came together on that day. Everyone says the stars aligned — well, it was actually a full moon. I was worried because I knew she would want to be dressed up and not in her pajamas, and it just so happened she had a business meeting, so she was fully dressed up.”
Four months later, Lindsay popped the question herself. On Instagram, she said, “Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!! On our 2 year anniversary I returned the favor and asked PK to marry me… and he said yes . We talk about equality but actions speak louder than words. Men should get engagement rings too and this is what PK deserves. Can’t wait to marry you babe.”
She also told Entertainment Tonight, “I was like, ‘Well, I have an engagement ring but you don’t, so not everybody knows we’re engaged.’ And I think it should be like, really equal.’ We were going to give each other rings, so I just kind of made a thing about it. But I never knew it was going to be that big of a deal… I just wanted to do something that was for us, and special for us.” However, they called off their engagement a year later.
10.
Haley Lu Richardson proposed to Brett Dier, her boyfriend of seven years, in 2018. She told Busy Tonight, “I asked him to marry me. Neither of us are, like, crazy romantic people, so nothing was planned. He was sitting there eating a pizza, and he was telling me a joke that Shia LaBeouf had said in an interview, and he was, like, pretending to be Shia LaBeouf explaining this joke, and for some reason, I just cut him off and was like, ‘Wanna marry me?'”
She also told Cosmopolitan, “Here’s the thing. I didn’t prepare at all. I had no idea when I woke up that morning that I was going to ask someone to marry me that day. I was totally in the moment, and this gut feeling came up and coerced me to ask him to marry me, and I did. And he said yes. I feel like the trick to that was just not thinking about it at all before it happened. I just kind of did it. We were at this outdoor strip mall eating pizza when it happened.”
“When we were crying and having this really amazing moment that I’ll never forget, crying and holding each other and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re going to get married. We’re going to be together forever.’ We were like, ‘We’re gonna have to do something about it,’ because we didn’t have any rings. So we went over to this bush and got these twigs and each knelt down one at a time and tied these twigs around our ring fingers. We have them saved in a little baggie. My engagement ring now, it’s custom-made. It’s a really simple ring, but it’s engraved like a twig. It was just the best day ever. It’s the best my heart has ever felt. I never knew my heart could feel that good,” she said.
However, in a 2022 Instagram story post, Haley shared, “Hey guys. This is me and Brett. We actually separated two years ago. But life goes on and we are both existing and doing pretty well turns out. We shared a deeply special chunk of our lives together. I’m so glad to have had the last couples years to heal and grow without the internet knowing but we kinda wanted to share it move on now. [sic]”
11.
Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg popped the question to her longtime partner Barry Diller in 2001. She told O magazine, “One year, I didn’t know what to give him for his birthday. And I called him and said, ‘You know, if you want, for your birthday, I’ll marry you.’ And he said, ‘Let me see if I can arrange it.’ It’s what he always says, and he always arranges it. A week later, we married at City Hall, and he gave me — this is so Barry — he gave me 26 wedding rings, for the 26 years we had not been married.”
12.
Four months into their relationship, Billie Piper reportedly proposed to British presenter Chris Evans in 2001. Later that year, they got married in Las Vegas. At the time, she was 18, and he was 35.
The couple separated in 2004, then their divorce was finalized in 2007. However, Billie looked back on their marriage fondly. In 2022, she told the Guardian, “Loved it. Loved that time. Learned so much. Really needed it after the experiences that I’d had, leading up to that point. And I felt like I’d actually found a real friend. I guess meeting someone who had experienced [fame] for 20 years, at that level, it was very nurturing. And also very drunken, which I needed. I had a lot of fun during those years.”
13.
Three months into their relationship, Jenna Bush Hager spontaneously proposed to Henry Hager. On TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, she said, “I asked Henry to marry me. He said no, and then he asked me five years later … I might’ve had a Christmas cocktail, and we were dancing, and I said, ‘This is it. I know it. Let’s just get married. What are we waiting for?’ He smiled, and he was like, ‘I’m crazy about you, but you’re young.'”
14.
Elizabeth Taylor proposed to her second husband, Michael Wilding, and chose her diamond-studded sapphire engagement ring herself.
15.
In 2022, The Bachelorette Season 14 star Becca Kufrin proposed to Thomas Jacobs, whom she met on Bachelor in Paradise. On Instagram, she said, “In the ultimate plot twist…HE SAID YES! We’ve been keeping this secret just between us and close family & friends for a while but we’re so excited to shout it from the rooftops! I finally found my chauffeur for life and the one who makes my heart smile every single day. I can’t wait to do it all with you Tommy, thanks for making me the happiest gal alive. I love you to the moon & back .”
In his own Instagram post, Thomas shared, “The ultimate UNO reverse card / power move. You keeping me on my toes for a lifetime has a great ring to it. Cheers to forever Boops #Fiance.”
Some people criticized Becca for her decision. On the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast, she said, “We’ve received so much love from people, but I’ve also seen comments where people are like, ‘She’s desperate.’ ‘I would never allow a woman to propose to the man.’ ‘I would never do this.’ And it’s like, cool, that’s you. But why does it, as a female, make me desperate to want to [propose] to somebody? If Thomas in a week were to do the exact same thing, no one says he’s desperate. It doesn’t make sense to me. The logic’s not there.”
Likewise, on Off the Vine, Thomas said, “Having a ring on your finger as a male, when your partner proposes to you as a female — you just feel like a bad bitch… That is the biggest compliment. That she wants to tie me down? That she proposed to me? Like, what? Am I a trophy husband now? Do I walk different? Do I talk different? Do I wear a monocle? Where do I go from here?” Five months later, Thomas proposed to Becca, and they got married in 2023.
16.
The Bachelorette Season 21 star Jenn Tran made franchise history as the first female lead to propose to her final pick. Stopping Devin Strader from popping the question, she asked him to marry her. However, on the “After the Final Rose” episode, she said that he began “pulling away” after filming ended. She said, “We left Hawaii engaged. I thought I found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. As soon as we left Hawaii, things were different… I was confused, I didn’t understand because we had just left so happy. He basically said he didn’t love me anymore and didn’t feel the same was… He was checked out. It wasn’t what he wanted anymore.”
She said he ended their engagement in a 15-minute phone call a month before the live finale episodes. The show aired the proposal segment, despite Jenn quietly asking, “Do I have a choice?” As it played, a live camera broadcast her emotional reaction with Devin right beside her. Many fans criticized the network for the “cruel” decision.
17.
And finally, The Real Housewives of Orange County cast member Grechen Rossi didn’t have any compelling storylines for Season 8 — until she decided to propose to Slade Smiley, her boyfriend of four years, via song. However, she denied that she only did it for the show. In a Season 8 clip, she said, “Absolutely, 100 percent no. I wasn’t gonna do something just for TV. I wasn’t gonna do something just to make money.”
Gretchen and Slade have been engaged since 2013. On the podcast Scheananigans with Scheana Shay, she said, “Honestly, it’s really just been the timing of everything… Life just got so busy. And then I started trying to have a baby, and that was so much money just doing the whole IVF thing and all that for four and a half years. And then after we had the baby, we were just busy being parents… I’m not the kind of girl that’s like, ‘Let’s go down to the courthouse and get married.’ I want the wedding…I want to have more of the big hoopla.”
If you’re a woman who proposed to her husband, tell us about your experience in the comments!
