Dave Franco Tells the Story of How He Botched His Proposal to Alison Brie

Dave Franco and Alison Brie have been married for almost five years now, but The Afterparty star’s awkward proposal story is just coming out. Franco shared how his romantic gesture went wrong when popping the question to the Community star on Wednesday’s The Late Late Show with James Corden. 

The story starts back when Franco and Brie met for the first time at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. “Over that weekend, she was wearing this silver Mardi Gras mask on her head, and I’d try to take it from her and she wouldn’t let me take it. It was this playful back and forth,” Franco recalled. “And when she left New Orleans, I was still there for work, she left a little note for me.”

“What she didn’t know was that I kept the mask,” he continued. “So, cut to five years later, we’re going up to Big Sur and I decide this is the trip where I’m gonna propose. I knew she wanted to pick out the ring herself, so I was like, ‘I’m not gonna have the ring, but I’ve got the mask. That’s the special thing I’ve got.”

Right before the trip, Franco decided he should have a “placeholder” ring he could use when proposing, “just something to put on her finger” before picking out the permanent ring. “So I go down the street to his old Hollywood antique store, and I get this vintage stone ring that I thought was cool, it was like 10 bucks,” he explained. 

When they finally got to Big Sur, Franco decided it was the perfect time to declare his love when Brie was out on the balcony of where they were staying. “So, she turns around, I’m on one knee, I’m wearing the mask and holding up the ring,” Franco recalled. “But, because it had been five years, she couldn’t place the mask. She didn’t know what it was!”

“What she sees is me wearing this weird, stupid mask holding up this janky stone ring,” he continued. “So the entire proposal is her saying, ‘What is happening right now?’ And it’s me trying to explain how sweet it is that I kept the mask for five years!” Luckily for Franco, the mask didn’t put Brie off of agreeing to marry him, and the two tied the knot in March 2017.