Maria Bello Announces She's Engaged and 'Grown Up Enough for Marriage'

The actress announced her engagement to world-class chef Dominique Crenn at Elton John's Oscar party.

Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

February 10 2020 11:02 AM EST

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Actress Maria Bello stepped out on Oscar night with her new fiancee, chef Dominique Crenn, and announced for the first time publicly that they are engaged, according to Entertainment Tonight.

"We're pretty happy, considering that we just got engaged," Bello told ET at Elton John's Oscar party on Sunday.

"This is sort of our fun time out in Hollywood for the first time. It was very surprising and meant to be, but about time. I've finally grown up enough to get married," Bello said.

The women got engaged in Paris December 29, according to the interview.

Bello, known for her roles in Coyote Ugly, The Cooler, and A History of Violence, came out in a New York Times opinion piece in 2013, in which she explained that she'd fallen in love with her then best friend, Clare Munn.

"We're really excited about this new chapter. It's cool to be out together in Hollywood doing this thing I've been doing for 25 years, but with somebody I really enjoy doing it with," Bello said. "Dom's a chef, so we've been to some of her things, but not to Hollywood things."

Crenn is a French chef who owns the San Francisco-based restaurant Atelier Crenn. She is the only female chef in the United States whose restaurant has earned a three-star Michelin rating.