Harry Borden/OUT magazine
The road to engagement was a bit unusual for Olympic diver Tom Daley and director Dustin Lance Black.
The 41-year-old filmmaker and the 21-year-old athlete began dating in 2013, after Daley came out as bisexual. He later clarified his remarks, proudly exclaiming, "I'm a gay man now" after getting together with Black. The two got engaged in 2015 -- and, in a new interview with OUT magazine, they reveal they both planned to pop the question at the same time.
"It turns out that we had both asked each other's parents, and we both had rings ready to go," Daley explains. Though each had planned to propose on a number of different occasions, it never seemed to pan out -- with botched attempts everywhere from San Francisco to London.
Tom beat Dustin to the punch, hours after the director had planned to ask for the Olympian's hand in marriage near the Tower Bridge. When Black saw how many people were there though, he decided against it and the two went home.
"So we go home, I go into the bathroom to get ready for bed and come out in my underwear, and that's when he drops down on one knee and proposes to me," explains Dustin.
"I had the ring box in my underwear, and when he came out of the bathroom, I just went down on my knee and proposed," adds Daley. "Then he ran off to the bathroom to get his rings, and he had this whole speech prepared, but he's a writer so his was quite extravagant. But looking back, all I can remember is being completely overwhelmed, like, Oh my God, we're now engaged. Who do we have to call? So I called my mom, and he called his stepdad."
"From the Golden Gate Bridge to the Tower Bridge without success, and finally it happened in our underwear," says Black.
The two also open up about how they first met, after a chance meeting at a restaurant in Los Angeles.
"Tom had just won an award at some Nickelodeon TV show, and they were planning to celebrate, and I said, 'I've got to go home; I have a script to write.' And Tom took my phone, and he typed his number in with a winky face," explains Dustin. "At which point I felt I had confirmation that he was a gay. I've never in my life heard of a straight man putting his number in another man's phone with a winky face!"
They went out shortly after and the rest is history.
"It was one of the first time that I felt, Oh my God, this isn't just a thing where I am attracted to someone. This is someone that I've connected with on a whole new level," Daley reveals. "It was new for me, and that was when I thought, 'S--t, I'm in trouble here.'"
No word yet on when the two will tie the knot.
