After her divorce from Lenny Henry in 2010, Dawn French wasn’t sure she would ever find love again. The comedian confessed that she didn’t enjoy dating and felt a bit “foolish,” flirting after her 25-year-marriage ended.
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And while she’d known Mark Bignell for a few years, she never thought of him as “dating” material, let alone “husband” material, until her late mom, Roma, set up a special date for the two.
It was then Dawn claims to have received a sign from her dad, who died when she was 19, telling her that Mark was the man she should marry.
For their engagement, Mark would propose to Dawn in the beautiful city of Venice, Italy. However, the proposal didn’t quite go as planned. She recounted the hilarious story on The Graham Norton Show.
Norton asked Dawn about Mark’s marriage proposal, enquiring if it was a “one knee proposal?” Dawn replied:
“Uh, no. It was actually in a gondola. In Venice, I know that sounds clique.
“Oh, no, no, those moments go with the clique,” Norton chimes in.
Dawn continues: “What I would say is that what he did do, is that he engaged the gondolier in a big conversation about the sewage system of Venice.”
“And I thought, Hmm…we paid quite a lot of money for this..(while looking at her watch) I didn’t know that that’s was going to come as quite a lot of money forty minutes and we’re still talking about…sh*t.”
Clearly annoyed, Dawn said she was like: “Uhm, could you look at me now? Look at me? And now the kissing!”
“And suddenly he said it. And I thought ‘Huh? What?’ We were just in the sewage system and now this?”
“Um, but yeah, yeah, it was in a Gondola.”
To hear to see Dawn tell her hilarious engagement story you can watch the video below.
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Sources:
- “Dawn French Talks About Her Engagement – The Graham Norton Show” YouTube.