Ryan Lochte may have earned 12 medals over an impressive Olympic swimming career, but the controversial athlete has never felt more like a winner than he does right now.
Why?
Because Lochte proposed to his girlfriend of about nine months over the weekend… and Kayla Rae Reid said yes!
The news went viral on Monday, with both the athlete and the former Playmate of the Month (July 2015) sharing photos from the proposal.
“Memories forever!!! #thelochtes #LA,” Lochte wrote as the caption to his image, while Reid added:
“Speechless. Absolutely beautiful. So in love with YOU.”
A day after his life-altering question was popped and answered, Lochte spoke backstage at Dancing With the Stars, gusing over his new fiancee and revealing precisely how he was feeling just prior to getting engaged.
In short?
It sounds like Lochte felt more pressure being down on one knee than he felt in any Olympic starting block.
“I couldn’t really focus, I couldn’t concentrate,” Lochte told Us Weekly of trying to practice for the ABC competition hours before the proposal. “I’m just happy everything worked out.”
It sure did.
As for details of the romantic proposal, Lochte was happy to spill a few secrets now that it was done and over with.
“We were in a helicopter and we went down around West Hollywood and Hollywood, and then we flew over Santa Monica and the pier, and we went up the coast in the helicopter,” Lochte explained.
He continued;
“Then they landed us on top of a mountain in Malibu, and on the mountain there was a picnic that had roses and champagne, and she was like, ‘What’s going on?’
“And so we got out and that’s when I got down on one knee. But I was messing up! I had practiced it so many times in my bathroom, I had my suit, my jacket on, and I was pulling the ring out, and everything was perfect.
“Then when it actually happened I couldn’t get the ring out of my pocket and I was stumbling over all of my words! And I was just so clammy and nervous – but then I finally got the courage to ask, ‘Will you marry me?’
“And she said yes! And I was like, ‘Yeah! My life is complete!"”
Wow. Nice. Sort of makes us with Ryan Lochte had proposed to us!
Not much was known about Kayla Rae Reid prior to news of her engagement making headlines yesterday.
Yes, she flew to Brazil and cheered Lochte on this summer, but the two kept their relationship on such a down low that Lochte joked prior to the Olympics that he was on Tinder.
You can get to know Reid a lot better below, however:
Lochte and Reid started dating in March.
Things turned very serious very quickly.
The swimmer went through some very challenging times over the past few months, being caught in a lie about an armed robbery in Brazil and then getting suspended for 10 months due to these actions.
But there was a silver lining to this low point: it solidified his relationship with his now-fiancee.
“She’s stuck behind me this whole entire time when I was at my darkest point and she was my rock,” Lochte says. “That’s when I knew, I’m not letting this one go!”
Lochte, meanwhile, is still alive on Dancing with the Stars.
Check out his latest routine with Cheryl Burke below and then respond:
Do you think he can win?
