rundown
Dylan Sprouse and Barbara Palvin’s romance began with an Instagram DM in 2017. The two secretly got engaged in September 2022 and married a few months later in Hungary. Sprouse recently showed his support for Palvin at the 2025 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
Dylan Sprouse and Barbara Palvin’s relationship has unfolded like a modern-day fairy tale, from an Instagram DM to a country wedding in Palvin’s native Hungary. From their first meeting to their married life, here is their complete relationship history.
2017
Sprouse and Palvin met briefly at a party. Palvin then followed him on Instagram and urged Sprouse to reach out. “She followed me, so I thought I’d give her something,” he recalled in a February 2019 digital cover story for W Magazine. “I slid into her DMs and said, ‘Hey, I don’t know if you’ve been in New York that long, but let’s hang out. Here’s my number.'” And she didn’t message me for six months. ”
In the same interview, Palvin explained that he had purposefully waited. “I took my time,” she said. “I knew at the time that I wasn’t thinking well, but maybe deep down I knew there was more to come.”
June 2018
When Palvin finally texted back, Sprouse was already in China filming The Curse of Turandot. Palvin was scheduled to go to China for work, but since there was no work available, he decided to go anyway. “Do you think it’s weird that I still want to see you?” she recalled asking during an appearance on People Now in May 2019. “He was like, ‘Please come.’
That trip became their first real date. Palvin said the connection felt easy, telling W, “I have a bit of a language barrier, so I’ve never been good at texting and flirting. With Dylan, everything seemed so easy.”
Sprouse added, “I’m not a chaser, but when she texted me, I wish I had time to take this girl out on a date. Ten minutes later, she texted me.”
July 2018
By the summer, rumors of a relationship began to circulate after the two were photographed together at a screening of Puzzle in New York.
Palvin and Sprouse shared a photo together on their Instagram Stories, with Sprouse writing, “We had a hair contest…who won?”
August 2018
Palvin made it official a few weeks later with a birthday post for Sprouse on Instagram. She wrote, “Even though it’s your birthday, I feel like I received the biggest present ever ♥️🤗 Happy birthday, boss baby 🎂.”
November 2018
Their status as a couple was further cemented when Sprouse appeared backstage at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. He arrived at the venue carrying a bag of Shake Shack for his post-walk Palvin. “He brought me a Shake Shack hamburger,” Palvin told People before the show.
January 2019
Sprouse and Palvin moved into a Brooklyn apartment together. Palvin shared an Instagram to commemorate the milestone, writing, “Two bugs officially in the Big Apple 🍎🐛.”
February 2019
In a joint digital cover story for W Magazine, the couple opened up about how their relationship started and how they lived together. Sprouse described meeting Palvin’s parents in Hungary and the cultural learning that came with it. “Her mother speaks a little English, but I’m not fluent in Hungarian,” he said. “I’m trying, but learning is definitely an exaggeration.” “If you go to Hungary and they offer you pálinka, you say yes. And if they offer you sausage, you say yes. That way you don’t hurt any feelings,” Palvin added.
Revealing his cooking style, Palvin said, “He’s better. He knows how to make it healthy with less ingredients, because that’s what he had to do for VS. But when he cooks, he uses everything, both delicious and unhealthy, so it always tastes better. I’m like, ‘This is broccoli and cauliflower soup made with water!'”
May 2019
Palvin told People Now that Sprouse was persistent before they officially started dating. “For a month, he just asked me to write him emails, and I was like, ‘No, I need to get to know you better,'” she said. “But I took a deep breath and thought, ‘What am I waiting for?’
“There is no other man I would love more than I love him. He has everything I need. He ticked all the boxes.”
February 2020
By the beginning of 2020, the couple had been together for over a year. In a joint video for British Vogue, Palvin admitted that dating a famous actor was scary. “I was a little scared. I was single for a long time before I started dating,” she said. She also revealed that she had to take the initiative for their first kiss: “It was 3 a.m. and you weren’t kissing me, so I had to take the lead! We’d been texting for four months and I was like, ‘Are you going to kiss me or what?'”
May 2020
That spring, Sprouse told Entertainment Tonight that quarantining together made them “stronger than ever.”
“What we realized is that we have great chemistry,” he said. “We know when to give each other space. We already divide roles in certain ways around the house…I think our relationship is stronger than ever.”
June 2020
Sprouse celebrated their two-year anniversary in a light-hearted Instagram post, writing, “Happy 2nd Anniversary. As we get older, we look more and more like each other, a beast with four arms and four legs that runs 50 miles an hour and screams like a baboon at nearby tourists intruding into the woods. I love you.”
September 2022
Sprouse proposed in Big Sur, California. He later told People that he chose this location because of their shared love of sea otters. “Big Sur is such a beautiful place…I wanted to do it there,” he said.
“So I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to take a knee. There’s going to be a lot of sea otters around…And as soon as we got into the wildlife park, one of the rangers came over and said, ‘Hey, just to let you all know, we haven’t seen any sea otters here in months,'” he continued.
“I got down on one knee in front of a beautiful landscape and did the thing. She thankfully said yes, and a moment later I saw a little head bobbing out of the water,” he recalled.
June 2023
The two confirmed their engagement in an interview with V magazine conducted by Cole Sprouse. Palvin revealed, “We got engaged in September.”
“We didn’t necessarily feel the need to be completely transparent with the public,” Dylan said. Palvin added, “Also, we just want to do it in our own time. When someone leaked the information that we were engaged, our public relations team was like, ‘Hey, so you guys should post about it, or talk to this magazine, or talk to that magazine…’ That was really upsetting because we knew we were making this story up. So I’m so glad we finally did it our way.”
He also spoke openly about marriage. “I think the definition of marriage is very different for our generation,” Dylan said. “For me, it’s a promise to love you endlessly and to be your partner.”
July 2023
Sprouse and Palvin tied the knot in Hungary at the same church where her parents were married decades ago. “Last weekend was supposed to be an intimate event, but we ended up with 115 guests,” Palvin told Vogue. “There are a lot of people we care about, so we wanted them all to be there.”
October 2023
Looking back on the wedding, Palvin said, “I’m so proud of the wedding because we didn’t have a planner. Just my sister and I did everything. It was everything I wanted and more.”
“The biggest thing was finally being able to show my American friends, and now my family on the American side, my father-in-law and mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, and everyone, Hungary and where I grew up. So being able to show them my heritage was obviously the best thing.”
February 2024
Sprouse told E! News that one of his favorite things about married life was simply “waking up next to my wife.” “When I roll over and see my beautiful wife sleeping, and I see my dog and I see my home made with things that I love, it’s so calming, it’s so nice, and it motivates me to try harder,” he said.
He added that his only “fraud” was accidentally watching a show without his girlfriend, adding: “That’s an absolute no-no. I learned that the hard way. Please don’t do that.”
October 2024
The couple appeared together at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, and when Palvin returned to the runway, Sprouse held up a pet sign and drew cheers from the audience.
On the red carpet, he told E! News, “She inspires me to dress better. When we started dating, I was wearing a white T-shirt from Kmart with armpit stains on it.”
February 2025
In an interview with People magazine, the couple revealed their rules for staying connected. “I try to visit him when he’s on set,” Palvin said. “We have a rule that we can’t be apart for more than a few weeks.”
“He’s with me when I travel,” she continued.
Sprouse added, “What’s been really cool is going back to the trailer and watching Barbara rehearse her lines and just hanging out. It just makes the whole day so much easier.”
October 2025
Sprouse was in the front row of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New York City to cheer on Palvin, who returned to the runway after undergoing surgery for endometriosis.
On the red carpet, he spoke to Entertainment Tonight about the pins he handed out in her honor. “I bring something different every year,” he said. “But this is more subtle,” he said, referring to the large pet sign he brought in last year.
“This is an endometriosis awareness pin, trying to raise awareness about endometriosis. Barbara had just had surgery for endometriosis and we were talking about endometriosis, and as she discovered in her own research, there is a sad lack of research,” he said.
He added: “I’ve always been very proud of her. She works very hard.”
“It’s very nerve-wracking for me as a husband, but it’s also very stupid to say this because she’s the one doing it. She broke her foot four weeks ago and she’s walking in what feels like three-quarter heels today, so she’s going to be sweating.”
