Former Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon is newly engaged.
Rippon, 31, announced Wednesday on Instagram that he and his longtime boyfriend, Jussi-Pekka Kajaala, got engaged in December in Kajaala’s native Finland.
“JP and I didn’t get to see each other for almost all of 2020 because of the pandemic. When there was finally a chance for me to go and see him in Finland, I jumped at it,” Rippon, who won a bronze medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, wrote.
Rippon said he was in Finland for a little over two months, and while he was there, he and Kajaala visited the Finnish forest, shared jokes and worked on the cottage Kajaala is building.
“In between all that and binging the entire 4 seasons of The Crown, we bought ourselves some rings and said that magic word.. ‘duh!’ We got ~*engaged*~,” he revealed in the Instagram post, which included several photos of the couple.
The “Dancing with the Stars” winner shared with NBC’s “TODAY” show this month that he and Kajaala first connected on a dating app while Rippon was visiting Finland for a 2017 skating competition.
“We ended up chatting and getting to know each other over the next 6 months. I felt like I had known him forever even without ever meeting in person,” written wrote in an email.
The two finally met in person in Los Angeles the following year.
“I picked him up at LAX when he traveled to the US to ‘meet’ me. I think we both played it cool when we first saw each other as he walked towards me with his luggage, but I just couldn’t help myself, and by the time we walked to the parking garage, as we were (putting) his suitcases into my car, we closed the trunk and looked at each other in the eyes and BAM, we kissed,” Rippon told TODAY. “Maybe everyone’s ideal first kiss isn’t at the LAX International Short Term parking lot, but ours was.”
As for Rippon’s professional future, the retired Olympian is focusing on a new NBC comedy series about figure skating, according to Variety.
Variety contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
