On Friday news broke that Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford had become engaged, and so the question on everyone’s lips since then has been, did Gayford propose?
Ardern had responded with an emphatic no to a BBC reporter’s question in January, ‘would you propose to your partner, Clarke Gayford?’.
She’d said that would be letting Gayford “off the hook”.
She had wanted to put Gayford through “the pain and torture of having to agonise about that question himself.”
We now know the answer to that question. In a press conference today, Ardern revealed that yes, Gayford did propose to her.
He popped the question over Easter while the couple were on a break in Mahia, a small settlement on the East Coast, in Hawke’s Bay. Gayford’s family owns a bach in Mahia.
The couple were enjoying the view from the top of Mokotahi hill in Mahia at the time.
Ardern revealed, “There was Clarke, myself and a member of the DPS (security staff)… also a couple of locals from Mahia and a dog which tried to eat the chocolate that Clarke bought me,” Ardern said.
When Ardern was asked if Clarke had gone down on bended knee, she replied, “Well I can tell you… that the DPS were up there and they had no idea, I don’t think, what had happened so that should be a bit of a giveaway.”
The engagement ring belonged to Clarke’s grandmother.
Ardern says there was no intention to “hide” their engagement from the public. The fact that she wore the ring on her middle finger was more a practicality. It was too small to fit on her wedding finger.
The couple have made no plans for their wedding as of yet, Ardern said. She said the proposal came as a surprise.
