Canadian model Winnie Harlow has announced her engagement to NBA star Kyle Kuzma in a post on Instagram.
“To eternity,” wrote Harlow in the post, published Tuesday, alongside the hashtag “#shesaidyes.”
Harlow published a series of photos showing the happy couple on a beach, as well as a video in which she held her engagement ring aloft while fireworks exploded overhead.
Harlow is one of the most recognizable faces in fashion and the founder of the Cay Skin skincare brand, which also posted about her engagement on social media.
“Are you kiddddddingggg me… Congratulations to our queen and king @winnieharlow @kuz on the most beautiful engagement. We love you two,” reads a post on the Cay Skin Instagram account on Tuesday.
Kuzma, a US basketball forward who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, reposted Harlow’s Instagram post.
The couple also discussed their engagement with Vogue in an article published Tuesday, revealing that Kuzma had started planning to pop the question six months ago.
The lavish proposal came in Turks and Caicos, where the couple went on vacation together for the first time in 2022.
Kuzma chartered a private jet to the islands – replete with roses, balloons, chocolate and champagne – but Harlow thought the preparations were just a “cute” way to mark Valentine’s Day, she told Vogue.
Kuzma then read her a poem he had written.
“For a split second in my head I thought, This would be so cute if this was an engagement,” said Harlow. “But I’m also not the type of person who wants to guess or wants to spoil a surprise. So it just was a fleeting thought in my head.”
But then the poem ended with the line “will you be my wife?” and he revealed an 8.5-carat oval-cut engagement ring.
The pair celebrated with dinner and fireworks on the beach with their families, reports Vogue.
Harlow, born Chantelle Brown-Young, was diagnosed with vitiligo, an incurable skin pigmentation disease that causes colorless patches to develop on a person’s body, at the age of four.
Bullied for the way she looked, her peers at school taunted her with cruel nicknames such as “cow” and “zebra.”
She rose to prominence as a contestant on America’s Next Top Model in 2014. Since then, Harlow has gone on to have a stellar career and is credited with changing beauty standards in the fashion industry, as well as amassing 10 million followers on Instagram.
She was the first model with vitiligo to walk in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and has used her position as a Black woman with vitiligo to push the boundaries of diversity in fashion.
