Tom Daley: I hid engagement ring in my underwear
Tom Daley has opened up (again) about getting engaged with Dustin Lance Black.
.The Olympic diver announced his engagement last year to his screenwriter partner, who was behind Oscar-winning gay rights biopic Milk.
The pair opened up about their lives together in a joint interview with Out magazine – and Daley revealed how he kept his planned proposal from being discovered.
Black – whose previous plans to propose on Tower Bridge were thwarted by TV cameras – explained: “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.”
Daley explained: “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.
“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 mum, and he called his stepdad.”
Black joked: “From the Golden Gate Bridge to the Tower Bridge without success, and finally it happened in our underwear.”
The screenwriter also opened up about being approached by the diver while Daley was still officially in the closet.
He said of meeting Daley at a dinner: “First off, let me be honest: When Tom walked in I was, like, Oh my God, he’s so cute.
“I knew who he was — I’d watched the Olympics — but in person I found him more mature and confident than I had expected.
“He came in with this gaggle of beautiful women so I had no idea what his sexuality was. In fact, he seemed all loved up on this beautiful blonde, so I thought, ‘well, there you go’.
“But occasionally I would look over to my right and I would catch Tom looking at me — that split second when someone is looking at you before they realize they’ve been caught and look away. And I thought, ‘that’s not straight’!”
“And then my friend texted me from across the table, and his text said, ‘he’s Google-searching you’.
“Well don’t read into that too much. I do that occasionally at dinner tables.
“But that, in combination with the look, made me think, ‘something’s up here, but that’s too good to be true! He can’t be into me. I’m dressed in a hoodie!’
“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. 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.”
