Leslie Grossman is going to tie the knot! The American Horror Story star, 53, is engaged to film producer Sascha Penn. Grossman revealed the relationship update during a Tuesday, Oct. 22 appearance on her former What I Like About You costar Jennie Garth’s podcast, I Choose Me with Jennie Garth.
“I am engaged, which is so fun!” Grossman shared. “That’s a wild thing that I didn’t see coming. Not that I didn’t see it coming with this person. I just didn’t see any of this next chapter of my life coming.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
The Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story star was previously married to Jon Bronson for 20 years. The former couple, who share 17-year-old daughter Goldie, divorced in 2020.
Although Grossman didn’t initially reveal her new fiancé’s identity, she later confirmed to PEOPLE that her soon-to-be husband is Penn, who she said proposed with a “beautiful and simple and classic” three-and-a-half carat gold band ring during an August trip to Martha’s Vineyard. Grossman said the proposal was “very private and perfect and exactly what I would’ve wanted,” adding that it was the “most perfect proposal I could have asked for.”
Reflecting on this “wonderful next chapter” of her life, Grossman told Garth that “I’m so happy for me too! He’s a wonderful person. It’s so funny, this is the first time I’m talking about it publicly.” She said that her “whole life got reorganized around my 50th birthday and everything got thrown up into the air, and it sort of fell to the ground. I was very intentional about sort of deciding what I was going to pick up and what doesn’t come with me anymore.”
Describing Penn to PEOPLE as “a brilliant writer, super talented, and an all-around wonderful person,” the frequent Ryan Murphy collaborator revealed that their relationship started in early 2022 when they first met on a dating app.
“Isn’t that wild? My therapist said to me, I was very resistant to going on dating apps, and she said to me, ‘You need to do it for two months.’ It was my homework assignment,” she said. “She said, ‘You’ve got to do it for two months.’ And we connected at the very end of that two months. It was like the day my two months were up.”
Grossman said that the dating apps were “a real learning curve” for her, but saying “yes” to Penn when he dropped to one knee and popped the question was easy.
Now engaged, Grossman and Penn are looking forward to their future together, but they’re not diving straight into wedding planning just yet. According to the actress, she’s “just really enjoying being engaged and I want to be here right now, in this moment.” She teased that their eventual wedding going to be “very small and intimate and just about us.”
