Actor-producer David Hasselhoff and his Welsh girlfriend, Hayley Roberts, have become engaged.
The “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider” star posted the news on his website on Tuesday and told “Hello!” magazine he proposed during a beachside picnic in Malibu, California. “I had a saying, ‘You don’t get married because you want to live with someone, you get married because you can’t live without them.’ I felt that way,” said Hasselhoff, 63. “I knew that I was really unhappy without her. I waited to propose because I thought I was too old for her.”
He met Roberts, 36, in 2011 while he was serving as a judge on the U.K. TV show “Britain’s Got Talent.” The two met in a Cardiff bar, said the European wire service the Press Association.
“I’ve asked her to marry me before but those times were for fun,” Hasselhoff told “Hello!” “This time, it was special and from my heart.”
Roberts, who is from Glynneath, Wales, told the magazine, “We were both in tears. . . . I genuinely had no idea he was going to do that. I’m still so overwhelmed,” adding, “I thought he was just joking around at first. He’s asked me before, but it was never for real. Then he pulled out the ring. I cried so hard that he didn’t get around to actually asking, ‘Will you marry me?’ until about ten minutes later.”
This would be Hasselhoff’s third marriage. He and actress Catherine Hickland were wed for five years before divorcing in 1989. He later married actress Pamela Bach, with whom he had daughters Taylor and Hayley before filing for divorce in 2006.
On Tuesday morning, Hasselhoff responded to well-wishers, tweeting “HELLO ! Thanks for all Congratulations to me & Hayley….”
Hasselhoff’s spokeswoman did not respond to a Newsday request for comment.
