Karl-Anthony Towns and Jordyn Woods made this Christmas season extra special.
After five years as a couple, Towns and Woods are engaged.
Towns proposed to Woods on Christmas Day at Overstory, a rooftop bar in New York City, where he got down on one knee.
“Merry Christmas,” their joint Instagram post read.
Before the announcement of their engagement, the couple celebrated their first anniversary on Woods’ Instagram series Regular-ish. They also shared how the difficult times they endured, including the death of Towns’ mother, Jacqueline, in April 2020.
“Me and Jordyn met years ago, knowing common people and just became friends,” Towns explained. “And ever since then, our relationship grew where we became more than friends. I’m not saying that way, but just best friends. And then we started having a deeper relationship.”
“It just so happened that COVID came and kind of brought its challenges. And it kind of forced us to either pick where our relationship was going to go as friends or something more. “We are the latter,” Towns continued.
“I think it’s kind of cool dating your best friend,” Woods added. “We know each other, and we know each other’s hearts. We know each other on good days and bad days, and we’ve been through a lot of bad days together.”
Towns said that Woods immersed herself in the basketball world.
“It means a lot,” she said of her commitment. Adding that her support “on a daily basis” — whether in correlation to his basketball career or not — “is truly special to me.”
He added: “You know, with my mom and my sister, I’ve seen the impact that good women have on men’s lives, and I’m just blessed that I saw that firsthand before I got with Jordyn so that I could learn to appreciate her.”
Speaking with PEOPLE in 2023, Woods said their relationship is built on their friendship.
“Friendship and trust,” Woods said at the time. “We were really good friends before we started dating. And COVID gave us that free time in our lives to really get to know each other. Because a lot of people don’t really get to know each other, and they go into this relationship.”
“So, we’ve been through a lot together,” she added. “We’ve seen each other in all different ways, times, phases, so I think we have a very strong foundation.”