The 'Damsel' actress details the wild underwater proposal that almost resulted in her losing her engagement ring.
Jake Bongiovi's proposal to Millie Bobby Brown was so surprising that the moment nearly resulted in them losing her engagement ring. The actress, 20, opened up about the romantic, somewhat chaotic, experience of getting engaged while underwater on a dive during an appearance on Thursday’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
"I haven't told anyone this because there are moments, key moments, but I'm like, 'Fallon is the best' and also I think this is too good of a story to not tell," Brown told the host when asked about the story behind her April 2023 engagement.
Brown explained that she and Bongiovi "bonded over diving" and even got their diving licenses together. So when the 21-year-old invited the Stranger Things star to an early morning dive at a familiar spot while they were on vacation, it wasn't too out of the ordinary.
The actress recalled Bongiovi telling her that they had an 8 a.m. wake-up call for their dive the next day, which she initially pushed back on. "I was like, '8 a.m., dive?' ... And he's telling me, 'We're going to the same spot we usually go to,'" Brown recounted. "I'm like, 'It's boring, let's go somewhere new.' He's like, 'No, we have to go to this spot.'"
When they embarked on their dive the next morning, Brown shared how things took a turn after Bongiovi handed her a shell.
"He gives me like a shell, and I like, turn it over, and it's a ring," she recalled. Considering they were "many meters down," it was no surprise that neither Brown nor Bongiovi were able to properly communicate the proposal or the acceptance. So Brown explained that she had to get creative to convey her answer to the big question.
Raising a thumbs up, she said, "This means, 'I want to go up.' So that would technically mean, 'No, I don't want to marry you, I want to go up," she told Fallon, adding that she resorted to accepting Bongiovi's proposal by giving him the "OK" hand symbol. "I think it was underwhelming, but we freaked out."
Bongiovi slipped the ring onto her finger, but when she gestured to show off her new bling, it slipped off and "(plummeted), like, so fast it was like a cinematic movie," she quipped.
"Jake threw himself, like so deep, like the diver was like, 'You can't do that, like, your ears ... literally your brain will explode,'" she recalled. "He does a cinematic, like, grab, opens (his hand) and he saved the ring!"
The quick save felt like a "reflection of who he is," Brown said, adding that the entire experience affirmed to her that they're "always going to have each other's back and if anyone drops the ball, we got it."
After the couple resurfaced, Bongiovi popped the question uninhibited by water, and Brown accepted. The son of Jon Bon Jovi explained that the ring was a placeholder for the one Brown actually wears, which belonged to her mother. Bongiovi explained that he had asked the Damsel star's mother if he could take her ring to propose, which she soundly refused.
"'Absolutely not, Jake. You're not taking my ring down there. I know you'll drop it.' And sure enough, I did," Brown said, quoting her mother.
So Bongiovi completed the underwater proposal with a different ring, giving Brown her mom's ring when they got back on the boat. "He was like, 'This is your mom's ring and I got it from your parents,'" the Enola Holmes star recalled. "And it was very magical and his parents were there and we just looked so disheveled coming out from a dive."
When it comes to wedding planning, Brown has previously revealed that she and Bongiovi are going forward as a team.
During an appearance on Today With Hoda & Jenna last year, Brown shared that wedding planning has been anything but stressful, and said she has Bongiovi to thank for that.
"It has not been stressful at all for me," she said. "Jake is very involved. He’s very helpful during the whole process. I’ve never felt alone in it, which I think is really nice. I’m always like, 'Is this a good idea? Is this a good idea?' Ultimately, it's just a very intimate day for the both of us, so we're both really excited."
While some of the star's fans have been vocal about their concern that the couple is tying the knot in their early 20s, Brown fired back in an interview with Glamour last October, opening up about trusting her instincts in the face of doubts concerning her engagement.
"It's like -- I know I should make this movie now. I know I should write this book now. I know I should do this now," Brown said of trusting her own sense of timing.
"It's not because I can't do it in 10 years; of course I can do it in 10 years," she continued. "But why, when I know that it's going to work now? Just like Florence [by Mills, her beauty brand] will be there in 10 years. You'll be able to see my movie in 10 years on TV. And I know that Jake and I will be okay... It's like, why wait? Let's go for it."
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