Move over Brooklyn and Nicola Peltz Beckham, there’s a new Gen Z power couple about to tie the knot. Actor Millie Bobby Brown, 19, has announced her engagement to Jake Bongiovi, 20, by posting a photo of the two embracing while she wears a diamond ring. “I’ve loved you three summers now, honey, I want ‘em all.” She captioned the post, which has already garnered over 4 million likes at the time of writing.
The Stranger Things star was first linked to the son of Bon Jovi star Jon Bon Jovi in April 2021 after they were spotted holding hands in New York. Their romance’s soft-launch happened three months later via Bobby Brown’s Instagram stories where she posted a candid photo of them cuddling. By November 2021 the pair became Instagram official when she posted a picture of them kissing on the London Eye to her 62.7 million followers.
During an Instagram live in January Bobby Brown revealed they met over Instagram. “And we were friends for a bit, and then, what can I say?” And also referred to him as her “partner for life” in a photo dump she uploaded several days later, which has led many to speculate they’ve actually alreday married. Especially since she seen wearing a gold diamond ring on her wedding finger last August.
Either way, we’re all #obsessed with her fiancé and it’s easy to see why: as one-half of a Gen Z power couple and from rock star lineage, Bongiovi has all the makings of a Hollywood heartthrob. The fact that his surname is spelt differently to his father’s has conferred a refreshing level of anonymity on him — which makes us want to know more.
A deep dive into his social media provides a few clues. Firstly, he seems to have ties to the Democratic Senator for New Jersey, Cory Booker (well, there’s a video of them together in 2018 — and they’re having a laugh), so we can presume that, much like his father — who’s been a life-long Democrat and played at Joe Biden’s inauguration — Bongiovi is a liberal. He attended the $53,000-a-year Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, where he played American football, and he’s now reportedly studying at Syracuse University in New York, where he is also part of the college football team.
His parents, Bon Jovi, 59, and Dorothea Hurley, who met in 1980 and married in 1989, have three other children: model and camera operator Stephanie Bongiovi, 29, wine entrepreneur Jesse Bongiovi, 28, and student Romeo Bongiovi, 18.
This isn’t Bobby Brown’s first high-profile relationship — between January and July of 2018 she dated social media star Jacob Sartorius and more recently rugby player Joseph Robinson, whom she split with in August 2020.
Out of Bongiovi’s 43 Instagram posts Bobby Brown now appears in 21. That’s nearly 50 per cent of his digital footprint, which for today’s online generation means things are pretty serious. They’ve also spent Christmas together and dressed up in matching Y2K Barbie and Ken outfits for Bobby Brown’s 18th birthday — a tried and tested IT-couple PR move.
As of yet there’s no information on when the ceremony will take place (or if it already has), but one thing’s for sure: it’s going to be a ultra A list affair with former rockers and Netflix stars aplenty.
