14 DAY TRIAL // Backstreet Boy AJ McLean, perhaps the one most famous for his long struggle with addiction and his bad boy behavior, is now engaged to be married. On his 32nd birthday, the singer got up on stage in a Las Vegas club for what fans believed was an impromptu performance and, instead, proposed to his girlfriend, as ContactMusic can confirm. She answered “yes,” of course.
“Backstreet Boys star AJ McLean publicly showed his commitment to girlfriend Rochelle Deanna Karidis in a Las Vegas nightclub on Friday (08 Jan ‘10) – by proposing on stage. The singer was out celebrating his 32nd birthday in Sin City with a party at the Hard Rock Hotel’s Wasted Space nightspot. Revelers expected the star to launch into an impromptu performance when he jumped up on stage – but instead he called out to his longterm partner, and asked her to join him,” the aforementioned publication says.
Karidis was just as taken aback by the request as were some of the fans attending the party, though, by this time, most of them figured out why McLean was asking for his girlfriend to join him on stage. However, this did nothing in terms of ruining the beautiful and romantic moment, complete with the singer getting down on one knee to pop the big question and with Karidis shedding a tear or two of pure joy, as surfaced pictures reveal.
“And Karidis was left stunned when she stepped onto the stage, after MCLean got down on one knee and asked her to marry him, according to People. An onlooker tells the publication, ‘He got up on stage and the DJ turned the music off. He asked her to come up on stage and he got down on his knee and she squatted down with him. He asked her and she said yes and hugged him. He took the ring out of his pocket and put it on her hand’,” ContactMusic writes, citing other ongoing reports.
According to friends of the couple, not even they saw the proposal coming. Of course, they all knew AJ and Rochelle had talked of getting married and that a wedding was in the cards for them, but no one actually expected him to propose on his birthday. A wedding date has not yet been set, it is further being said.