It may have been rehearsed, but a dancer and model from Tampa wants you to know that he really did pop the question during Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show.
“That’s the main thing people keep asking: ‘Was it real, was it real?’” Victor Dimaren, 30, told the Tampa Bay Times. “My parents know, her parents know. Yes, it was real. We’re engaged.”
On Sunday, Dimaren was the guy to whom Bad Bunny passed an engagement ring during the performance. Dimaren knelt and presented it to his partner of three years, Emma Eldridge, 27. An estimated 136 million people around the world were watching.
Dimaren grew up in Tampa and for years was part of the local breakdancing scene. He and Eldridge, a longtime Tampa resident originally from South Africa, met at a Tampa pool party.
To be clear, Dimaren and Eldridge were notthe couple that got married during the show, just before Lady Gaga showed up. That couple had invited Bad Bunny to their wedding, according to a statement from the artist’s publicists, and wound up being invited to the Super Bowl instead.
It was actually the third Super Bowl halftime show for Dimaren, who danced at The Weeknd’s show in Tampa and Kendrick Lamar’s in Los Angeles, but he’d never appeared as prominently as on Sunday.
Dimaren recently moved to Los Angeles for work, but his social media landing page still reads, “Reppin’ Tampa, Florida.”
Dimaren said that when a Super Bowl casting call went out for a couple who’d be willing to stage an engagement — and make it real — he jumped at the opportunity. He was already planning on proposing this year.
As the couple moved along in the casting process, Dimaren said everything started to click.
“The whole message of the performance was that the only thing more powerful than hate is love,” Dimaren said. “That’s why you saw an engagement and a marriage. I’m Puerto Rican, Emma is an immigrant herself, it was connecting all the dots.”
Back in Tampa on Sunday, members of the local dance community took to social media after recognizing Dimaren’s familiar face on the world’s biggest stage.
“Congratulations@slicklikevic for doing amazing things out there!” read a post from Dance Tampa Bay, a nonprofit that advocates for dancers and dance education in Tampa.
Jep Jacinto, a Tampa resident better known in the street dancing community as JepStar, did a double take.
“He’s definitely one of the prominent B-boys from the battle scene here,” Jacinto said. “Everyone was like, ‘What?! Wait! We know that guy.’ It’s always cool when someone from Tampa gets booked for a gig.”
Dimaren didn’t post about the moment himself until later on Monday. By Tuesday morning, he said his phone was literally hot from the amount of messages and congratulatory calls he’d been receiving.
And yes, there was really an engagement ring in the box, graciously paid for by the production. Now, he said, they just have to get it sized.