MrBeast Jimmy Donaldson gets engaged to influencer Thea Booysen

Today I’m… getting engaged: YouTube star MrBeast is engaged to fellow influencer Thea Booysen, aka the future MrsBeast.

The “Beast Games” host, 26, who is the most subscribed YouTuber, proposed to his girlfriend of two years on Christmas Day and revealed on New Year’s Day that they were engaged.

“You did something, boy,” he said wrote Wednesday on Instagram, sharing a photo of himself on one knee presenting an engagement ring to Booysen in their living room. The online content creator, whose YouTube channel has more than 341 million subscribers, shared additional photos from the proposal, which showed the couple wearing matching MrBeast holiday sweaters and family members watching.

Booysen, 27, also job about the engagement, sharing a post-proposal video clip and showing off her new ring — a round-cut diamond on a rose gold band with additional diamonds on either side.

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“Jimmy ,” she captioned the clip, referencing her fiancé’s birth name, James “Jimmy” Donaldson.

In an interview with Peoplethe couple said Booysen’s family flew to North Carolina from South Africa to celebrate Christmas with them. Donaldson said he wanted to include Booysen’s family in “this momentous occasion” because she is very close to them.

“We were opening presents, and then for the very last present, he asked me to close my eyes because it was a surprise,” Booysen said.

Donaldson said he intentionally dropped a large box to make noise before presenting Booysen with the real gift with the ring inside.

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“And then I got down on one knee and proposed,” he said. After Booysen opened her eyes, she “of course said yes” and was “extremely excited,” she told People.

Donaldson, best known for his viral challenges, his affinity for blowing things up and elaborate and exorbitantly priced stunts, flouted expectations with the intimate proposal.

“My friends thought I would propose in a very public way, like some sort of spectacle at the Super Bowl or something, very big like that, but I knew I wanted it to be the opposite, to be really private and intimate,” he said.

Likewise, the popular public figure plans to make her marriage a private affair.

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“I don’t take a lot of vacation time because of my hard work, so I really want to make sure the wedding is a time to celebrate with her and spend time with the friends and family we really enjoy being with. This will be the ultimate way to take some time and enjoy things,” he said.

Booysen, who said getting married at this stage was “just a formality”, suggested celebrating their nuptials on an island “away from almost everyone”.

“We’re not going to try to have a big, extravagant wedding. It will be nice, but it will definitely be intimate (with) close family and friends,” she said.

Donaldson and Booysen met in 2022 while MrBeast was visiting South Africa. The two had dinner with a mutual friend and she was disarmed by the YouTuber’s down-to-earth nature and intelligence. They “vibrated instantly,” he told People.

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They made their red carpet debut at the Kids’ Choice Awards in April 2022. Although Donaldson planned to propose in 2023, the couple opted to wait until Booysen — who has a bachelor’s degree in law — had completed her master’s program. Booysen job in November to realize his dream and obtain a master’s degree in human cognitive neuropsychology from the University of Edinburgh.

The couple’s engagement, which comes weeks after the premiere of Donaldson’s film much-maligned Prime Video reality series “Beast Games,” capped a turbulent but controversial year for the well-paid content creator. Last year, Donaldson was criticized for using “inappropriate language” in his first videos and has faced scrutiny over his channel’s philanthropic efforts, the Associated Press reported. The YouTuber was also criticized for workplace culture on his show and hit with allegations of unsafe conditions on setwhich he denied.

In September, Candidates for the “Beast Games” sued his production company and Amazon for sexual harassment, failure to pay minimum wage and negligent infliction of emotional distress, among other allegations.

At the end of December, rolling stone reported that Donaldson, along with singers Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson and celebrity chef Guy Fieri, were among the celebrities with whom the Pentagon had struck production deals to boost the military’s image among Generation Z.

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This story was originally published in Los Angeles Times.