Karina Smirnoff is set to take her dancing from the ballroom to the aisle.
The 32-year-old “Dancing with the Stars” pro is engaged to Brad Penny (an MLB player who pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals last season), according to People.
The couple actually became engaged on October 4, following Karina’s futuristic foxtrot with Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino on “Dancing,” but chose to keep their happy news to themselves until now.
“We kept it quiet because my family is in New York and Brad’s family is in Oklahoma,” Karina told the mag. “So we kind of wanted them to come out and celebrate and be a family first before we let the cat out of the bag.”
Brad, 32, sealed the deal with a stunning 4.5 carat Asscher Cut diamond engagement ring, which Karina happily showed off in Las Vegas on Saturday at Tao’s five-year anniversary party.
While the pair has yet to begin planning the wedding, the proposal took what Karina describes as “a conspiracy” between Brad and the dancer’s manager to pull off.
The brunette beauty said her manager told her that the president of Twitter wanted to meet her for dinner after she finished taping the reality dance competition, so she headed to dinner, still sporting the black lipstick and teased hair from the evening’s performance.
“We went to this restaurant and [my manager] got on her phone and said ‘this guy is killing me,’ and got up and walked away,” Karina told the mag. “Then Brad walked in and it still didn’t register. He got down on one knee and he opened the box and I said, ‘Thank you’. I honestly didn’t expect it.”
Karina and Brad met through a mutual friend (and former “Dancing” contestant), UFC champ Chuck Liddell, and began dating in October 2009 following Karina’s broken engagement to fellow dancing pro, Maksim Chmerkovskiy.
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