MrBeast Engaged to Longtime Girlfriend Thea Booysen

MrBeast is engaged! The famed YouTuber, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, rang in the New Year by announcing his engagement to his girlfriend, Thea Booysen. The social media star shared the big news on Instagram Wednesday, revealing that he dropped to one knee and popped the question on Christmas Day.

“Ya boy did a thing,” MrBeast captioned a gallery of images from the proposal. In the photos, the YouTuber and Booysen donned matching MrBeast-branded Christmas sweaters as he popped the question in front of family. Other images showed the newly engaged couple embracing post-proposal and posing with their dogs. Booysen, also a YouTuber, showed off her engagement ring in another image, and also shared the news to her own account, where she captioned a video, “Jimmy” alongside heart and ring emojis.

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Opening up about the “private” and “intimate” proposal, MrBeast told PEOPLE that he was “trying to think of the best way to catch her off guard so it would be a surprise.” Since Booysen “is really close to her family,” he said he “wanted to make sure that they were included in this momentous occasion. Christmas worked out great because they were in town from the other side of the world.”

“My family flew out from South Africa for Christmas and we were going to do Christmas in our house so both families were here,” Booysen added, “We were opening presents, and then for the very last present he asked me to close my eyes because it was a surprise.”

MrBeast said he “intentionally dropped a large box to make noise before presenting the real gift — with the ring inside — to her. And then I went down on a knee and proposed.” When Booysen opened her eyes, she “of course said yes” and was “extremely excited.”

The couple met in 2022 when MrBeast was visiting South Africa, where Booysen is from. After sharing a dinner together, the two “vibed instantly,” MrBeast said, and although the YouTuber ultimately had to return home, they kept in touch and sparked romance. MrBeast knew he was going to propose as early as 2023, but waited to pop the question until one month after Booysen graduated with a master’s degree in human cognitive neuropsychology at the University of Edinburgh.

Now engaged, the couple are now looking ahead to their wedding, something that will “definitely be more family and friends — definitely more private,” the YouTuber said. According to Booysen, the pair are “thinking of doing it somewhere on an island where we’re far away from just about everybody. We’re not going to try and have a big, extravagant wedding. It’s going to be nice, but it’s certainly going to be intimate [with] close family and friends.”