Christina Aguilera began her first tour in 10 years Tuesday with a romantic surprise for her audience.
At the opening night of her Liberation Tour in Hollywood, Florida, the pop diva invited two fans, Mike Kontomanolis and Ben Lear, onstage in between songs. After a short introduction, Lear dropped to one knee and revealed an engagement ring. (The proposal begins at about 6:20 in the above video.)
“I could not have imagined you could have a better moment than [with] this woman, who has inspired you throughout your whole life and has brought you so many things,” Lear said. “You’re kind, you’re beautiful, you’re loving. Six years ago, you proposed to me and you gave me the opportunity to say yes. Tonight, in front of Christina, I’m going to ask you the same question.”
The grooms-to-be captured the magical moment on Instagram.
Dressed appropriately in a flowing white dress, Aguilera responded by vowing to turn her concert “into a wedding reception” and dedicated her 2012 song “Let There Be Love” to the newly engaged couple.
Kontomanolis later gushed about the “magical” moment in an interview with E! News and said his new fiancé had kept specifics of the proposal a complete surprise.
“It all seemed like a dream,” he said. “Christina was so gracious and humble; it was all just so surreal. She is my icon, so this was too much for words.”
Aguilera, meanwhile, has been an outspoken LGBTQ rights advocate for years. She featured a same-sex couple in the video for her 2002 hit “Beautiful.”
“Starting out in my career, there was a lot of uncertainty for me as to who I was and where I fit in. So many labels and so many of society’s rules telling me how I should be and what I should be,” she told Billboard last year. “As my career moved forward and I began making music that spoke to my pain and struggles, there were fans that came out to me with stories that literally lifted me up. Those were all my LGBTQ fans that through thick and thin stand with me daily.”
She went on to call the queer community “my fighters, my heroes, the reason I love what I do.”
