Millie Bobby Brown Details How Her Proposal Nearly Went Awry

Millie Bobby Brown shared the astonishingly untold story of her engagement to Jon Bon Jovi’s son Jake Bongiovi during her Tonight Show appearance on Thursday.

The Stranger Things star, who first indicated that she and Bongiovi were engaged in a social media post last spring, said that she previously hadn’t shared the story of her fiancé popping the question because she wanted to keep “key moments” private, but this was “too good of a story to not tell.”

More from The Hollywood Reporter

• Robin Wright Praises 'Damsel' Co-Star Millie Bobby Brown: "A Little Powerhouse"

• Matty Matheson Shares Why He Refused to Play a Chef on 'The Bear'

• Jon Stewart Tearfully Mourns His Dog, Dipper, Who Died Over the Weekend

“Jake and I bonded over diving. We love diving. We got our diving licenses together,” she said. “And one day, we were out on vacation, and he was like, ‘Mill, you’ve got to be up at 8 a.m., we’re going on a dive.’ I was like, 8 a.m.? Dive?”

He took her to the “same spot” they always go to, despite her request to try a new location. Bongiovi didn’t want to go for a standard proposal; he wanted it be extra special for Brown, so he decided to propose underwater.

“We go under, and we’re like many meters down. He gives me a shell, and I turn it over and it’s a ring,” she recalled. While the proposal was certainly memorable, there was a snag. Given how they couldn’t communicate underwater, Brown struggled to find a way to accept. She couldn’t give a thumbs up, because for divers, it means “up.” “That technically would mean, ‘No, I don’t want to marry you. I want to go up,'” she explained. Brown instead opted for an “OK” hand signal, which she thinks made the romantic moment “underwhelming.”

But the proposal’s issues got worse when Bongiovi failed to take into account that the ring could easily get lost in the ocean. “He puts the ring on my hand and as I go to show him, the ring falls off my finger, plummets so fast,” the Damsel star recalled. “Jake threw himself into the water, like, so deep. Like, the diver was like, ‘You can’t do that. Your ears—literally, your brain will explode.'”

Luckily, Bongiovi was able to save the ring and the ordeal served as a reminder to Brown that they can handle anything in their relationship. “I truly feel like it’s a reflection of who he is, and I feel like we’re always going to have each other’s back, and if anyone drops the ball, we got it,” she said.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter

• Meet the Superstars Who Glam Up Hollywood’s A-List 

• Rosie O'Donnell on Ellen, Madonna, Trump and 40 Years in the Queer Spotlight

• Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Stylists: Why Sydney Sweeney, Sadie Sink, Anne Hathaway, Angela Bassett and Jodie Turner-Smith Love Their Image Makers