Paul Mason, the former World's Fattest Man, has accepted a marriage proposal from girlfriend Rebecca Mountain after she asked for his hand live on US television.
The couple, who met online in 2013, were filming an episode on US chat show The View when Rebecca popped the question.
Paul, who dropped from 70 to 22 stone, is unable to walk after his dramatic weight loss left him with eight stone of excess skin and is determined to get back on his feet in time to tie the knot.
proposal wasn't the only surprise for Paul on The View. The programme also found someone to pay the $17,000 (£10,341) for the cost of the first operation. A very generous engagement present, indeed.
See Also:
'Former World's Fattest Man' Releases Naked Photographs In Plea For Help To Remove Excess Skin
World's Fattest Man Finds Love Online - Girlfriend Says She Doesn't Care About 8 Stone Of Loose Skin
Paul, who is from Suffolk, needs to maintain his weight for two years before the NHS will operate. So he decided his only help was travelling to the US and raising money for surgery.
In December, Paul flew to the US to meet with Dr Jennifer Capla, who is keen to perform plastic surgery to remove his excess skin.
"What she's going to do is my tummy and my arms, both at the same time," Paul said. "I thought just the tummy would be major surgery on its own, but she feels confident that because my health is good, she could do the arms at the same time."
Paul hopes that the broadcast of the show will raise money to pay for the aftercare: "I'm excited, all I've got to do is go back to the UK, get a medical visa, and then come back."
At present, the couple have not set a date for the wedding.
"There's so many things we need to do to take care of Paul first," said Rebecca. "There will be another surgery for his legs, but not for another six to eight months."
Falling in love with the world's fattest man - or rather, the world's former fattest man - has already brought in a lot of media scrutiny, not least of which people want to know just how it happened.
Rebecca was moved to try and help him raise the money, and contacted him offering her support. They then struck up a cyber relationship, talking to each other on Skype for four hours.
Paul says, according to The Daily Mail: "Our first chat on Skype was over four hours and it just felt like we'd been talking for years. At the end of the conversation, I just said to her "what time tomorrow then?""
Speaking about their relationship, Rebecca says: "Who is in there now is the person I love and whoever he is after the operation is irrelevant to me. I want him to achieve his goals and that's the most important thing."
Paul, who once consumed 20,000 calories per day, described his overeating as a debilitating food addiction which was caused by many factors, including a broken heart when he was 21.
“It was a combination of issues from school and issues in family life. So all those things just built up inside and I used food to try and blot out those feelings that I had in my head."