Broadway Stars Matt Doyle and Max Clayton Engaged After 8 Years Dating: 'We Are So Incredibly Lucky'
"After 8 years together, we think we like each other enough to make it official," the couple wrote
Matt Doyle and Max Clayton are putting a ring on it!
The actors and Broadway stars are officially engaged, Doyle, 35, and Clayton, 31, sharing their happy news in a joint Instagram post on Monday.
"While traveling through Schoonhoven in the Netherlands, we spotted a pair of rings, handmade by a local jeweler in town. Shockingly, they were both a perfect fit," they wrote, captioning a photo of the smiling couple showing off their new Marjon Kappers jewelry.
"After 8 years together, we think we like each other enough to make it official ??," he continued. "From meeting at a Starbucks in New York to Schoonhoven. We are so incredibly lucky."
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Many of the pair's famous friends sent words of congratulations, including Matt Bomer, Maude Apatow, Rachel Zegler and Vanessa Hudgens, who wrote, ' Love you guyssss."
Although the pair have been an item for nearly a decade, Doyle told PEOPLE in 2022 that things didn't start out as picture-perfect as their engagement photo.
"We started dating, I broke up with him immediately, and then we got back together," he explained, adding that Clayton — who at the time understudied Hugh Jackman in the Broadway revival of The Music Man — "saw past" Doyle's bouts of anxiety and depression, which he has struggled with since he was a child.
"Max just always saw me for who I was," related Doyle.
He also recalled that growing up, he knew that his "very conservative father" would "never approve" of his identity as a gay man, but found himself surprised by an unexpected gesture that would foreshadow his current announcement.
"My father is in advertising, and he was working on Tiffany," Doyle said. "I was backstage with a bunch of people [at the time, in 2015], and I wasn't really talking to my dad that much those days. And somebody mentioned, 'Have you seen the new Tiffany engagement ad? It's a gay engagement ad. And I asked, 'Is it in the gay magazines?' And they said, 'No, it's a national ad. It's everywhere.' And I said, 'Well, my dad has Tiffany, but he wouldn't have done that.' "
Getting choked up, Doyle recalled, "I called him up, and I said, 'Did you do this, Dad?' And he said, 'Yeah, I did it.' I said, 'Why didn't you tell me that?' And he was like, 'I just didn't want you to feel like I was trying to prove something.' And I just wept."
Related:Dear Evan Hansen Star Jessica Phillips Is Rediscovering Herself at 50 as Part of the LGBTQ Community
Doyle, who won a Tony Award in 2022 for his performance in Company, is currently playing Seymour in Off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors. He's also appeared on Broadway in Spring Awakening, Bye Bye Birdie, War Horse and The Book of Mormon, and had a notable role on the small screen in Gossip Girl.
Clayton made his Broadway debut in 2015's Gigi, and has since performed in On the Town, Something Rotten!, Bandstand, and Hello, Dolly! In addition to his acting work, he also sells real estate.
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