Two years into his retirement, Shaun White has pulled off his greatest trick yet. The three-time Olympic gold medalist on Wednesday announced his engagement to “The Vampire Diaries” alum Nina Dobrev after five years of dating. “She said YES,” White wrote with an Instagram carousel of photos from the picturesque proposal.
He also shared some sweet snapshots on his Instagram story , calling the late October evening the “best night of my life.” Dobrev also posted an announcement of her own, quipping, “RIP boyfriend, hello fiancé” and attaching a few selections from the same batch of engagement photos. In one, she clasps her hands — one diamond-laden, of course — to her mouth in astonishment.
That look of surprise was hard-earned, White told Vogue in an interview published Wednesday. White’s original plan to propose during the couple’s summer vacation, he told the outlet, was foiled when Dobrev injured her knee in a dirt-biking accident . Later, he scrapped a plan coinciding with their scheduled November trip to Cape Town, South Africa, because Dobrev seemed suspicious — and he was gunning for a true surprise.
So White hatched his final plan, recruiting his publicist to send his now-fiancée a fake invitation to a business dinner with Anna Wintour at the Golden Swan restaurant in New York City. Dobrev accepted. “He made the invite look so legitimate,” Dobrev told Vogue.
When she arrived, she was shocked to find Shaun under an arch of white roses. .