Leap year, alert! That’s right ladies, 29th February is a day when the tables turn and getting down on one knee to propose to your significant other (according to tradition, that is), is encouraged. There’s actually a whole movie starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode about the rare holiday. While anyone can propose (or not) whenever they please, here are some female celebs who took tradition into their own hands and proposed to their significant others on a leap year.
1. Queen Victoria
Indeed! Back on 15th October 1839, Queen Victoria invited Prince Albert to be alone in “the closet”. It was at that exact moment that she asked him to marry her, and the rest is history. Her diaries share details of that special moment: “We embraced each other over and over again, and he was so kind, so affectionate… I really felt it was the happiest brightest moment in my life.”
2. Pink
The world-renowned singer proposed to motorcross racer Carey Hart mid-race! During the third lap of one of his races, she held up a board that asked him to marry her. Her now-hubby didn’t pull over, probably thinking it was joke, but then she held up another board that read “I’m serious,” and he pulled over. The couple have been married for 14 years and share two children together.
3. Halle Berry
Halle Berry felt absolutely sure she found the one after dating the American baseball player David Justice for just six months. She popped the question and the couple got hitched. They were married for five years but got a divorce in 1997.
4. Kristen Bell
The Frozen actress proposed to her hubby Dax Shepard in a way that is totally them: on Twitter. The Hollywood stars agreed to wait until America’s Defense of Marriage Act was abolished until they tied the knot, which was a show of solidarity towards their friends in the LGBT community. And that’s exactly what they did.
5. Elizabeth Taylor
According to The Guardian, renowned actress Elizabeth Taylor was the one who proposed to her second (out of seven) husband, Michael Wilding. Taylor was in England filming her role of Rebecca in the 1952 movie Ivanhoe when she proposed to him. Wilding was 20 years older than her and the couple were married for 5 years and shared two sons together.
6. Jennifer Hudson
Jennifer Hudson followed up her boyfriend David Otunga’s proposal five months later with one of her own – on her birthday in 2008. The couple had a son together but broke off their engagement nine years later in 2017.
7. Judge Judy
Yup, Judge Judy did the proposing herself, and we’re not surprised in the least. She proposed to now husband Jerry Sheindlin with a calendar. “I said to him, ‘Where is this relationship going?’ And he tried to weasel out of it, with his, ‘Well, you know, why do we have to get married?’ Whatever. He finally capitulated. I told him to pick a date. He picked Flag Day,” she told DuJour. They divorced in 1990 but remarried a year later and share several children and grandchildren together.