Selena Gomez engaged to Benny Blanco after one year of dating

Originally appeared on E! Online

Come and get this exciting news: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco are engaged.

The "Who Says" singer announced the news Dec. 11, posting photos of herself wearing a diamond ring on that finger and writing on Instagram, "Forever begins now.."

And if there was any doubt about what she meant, Blanco was quick to spell it out. "Hey wait…" the record producer wrote in a comment, "that’s my wife."

The pair, who started dating in the summer of 2023 before going public later that year, got engaged nearly two decades after Gomez, 32, and Blanco, 36, were first introduced and five years since they collaborated on the song "I Can't Get Enough."

“We both met each other like almost 16, 17 years ago,” Blanco, born Benjamin Joseph Levin, recalled in an April interview with SiriusXM Hits 1. “Obviously, we made a bunch of songs together. But before we had made any music together, I was one of her big meetings — like right around when she was just leaving Disney to make her own music."

"I guess it was a big meeting at the time," he continued. "Then we wound up making songs after. She's the best."

READ Why Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco Romance Is Like a Love Song

Indeed, it was around the time the duo worked together on Gomez's song "Single Soon," released in August 2023, that they, ironically, started dating.

A few months later, in December, professed to a fan online that Blanco "is my absolute everything in my heart" and also confirmed they'd been together for six months.

And while Blanco and Gomez love each other like a love song now, their romance took them by surprise.

"It was so crazy," Blanco told Howard Stern in May, "when we went out on our first date, I didn't even know it was a date. She was like, 'Hey, you want to hang out?' And I was like, 'Yeah.'"

"I remember we were talking," he continued, "and she's such a forward person and she's like the coolest, the nicest, the sweetest, everything. And I remember sitting there and she's like, 'Well I would've worn something different for this date.' And I was like, 'What? We're on a date?'"

From there, they became inseparable.

"She's truly my best friend," Blanco said. "We laugh all f----- day. She inspires me."

At the time, Blanco already had family on the brain.

"I want to have kids," he shared on "The Howard Stern Show." "That's the next goal, to check the box. I have a ton of godkids, I've got a ton of nephews. I love being around kids."

Prior to her relationship with Blanco, Gomez was enjoying the single life and contemplating starting a family of her own.

“I was alone for five years, and I got really used to it," Gomez, who was previously in a longterm relationship with Justin Bieber, told Time in May. "A lot of people are afraid of being alone and I probably tortured myself in my head for like two years being alone, and then I kind of accepted it. Then I came up with my plan, which was I was going to adopt at 35 if I had not met anyone."

And then came Blanco. As Gomez noted, “It just happens when you least expect it."

PHOTOSSelena Gomez, Benny Blanco, Fourth of July, Instagram, 2024