I'd venture a guess that a good amount of Morning Joe's viewers tune in every morning partly to watch the banter — sometimes flirty, sometimes bickering, always entertaining — between co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. While the pair often seem at odds with each other, trading jabs and getting into heated disagreements on politics — he's a Republican, she's a Democrat — they've always had an undeniable chemistry. As it turns out, that flirtatious dynamic continued off-camera — and recently blossomed into a very serious relationship.
The couple surprised the world Thursday morning with the announcement that they are engaged. MSNBC confirmed the news to the AP and People following a Page Six story. Shortly after, Vanity Fair published an exclusive interview with Scarborough and Brzezinski, who spilled details on how they began dating as well as the proposal. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, got down on one knee earlier this week while the two were vacationing in the South of France for Brzezinski’s 50th birthday on Tuesday.
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Rumors that the co-hosts were dating started swirling after Brzezinski split from her husband of 23 years in December 2015. (Scarborough divorced his second wife in 2013.) “Everyone talks about how there was always something there,” Brzezinski told Vanity Fair. “Over the past year and a half, I realized I had to face these feelings and that it was time to stop putting them in a box. It was not an easy process and it was not an easy set of decisions for either of us. It was something I couldn’t deny anymore.”
Scarborough — who hinted at a relationship last month when he told The Hollywood Reporter, "We have a crackling on-air chemistry, and a crackling off-air chemistry, too" — came to a similar realization despite being weary of getting married again. “I thought after the last time that I would never, ever do this again in a million years,” he told VF. “Then it occurred to me that with us working together and being live on the air every day for three hours that we were forced, no matter what disagreements we had, what misunderstandings we had, to work through it and get right with each other by 5:59 A.M.”
In other words, 10 years of on-air quarreling helped the duo develop excellent conflict resolution skills. “I was talking to a friend a couple months ago, asking if this was stupid. Am I making a terrible mistake? They said that no, that we had extraordinary training on getting through difficult times together, and it’ll only make us a stronger couple and stronger in married life.”
As for the wedding? No date or location has been set. Fun fact, though: during a lunch meeting at the White House in late January, President Trump suggested that if the couple ever wed, they should do it at Mar-a-Lago or the White House — and Jared Kushner said he could officiate. They turned both offers down.