For the right reasons! Sarah Hyland and Wells Adams are proof that Instagram can be the beginning of a beautiful love story.
Us Weekly exclusively revealed that the Modern Family star and the Bachelor in Paradise bartender were dating in October 2017. Months later, Hyland shared that the twosome met over social media.
“Have you seen those memes of ‘Slide Into the DMs’? That. He slid into my DMs,” the actress explained on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in January 2018. “I thought he was funny, and he was a fan of [my] show. I saw him as the bartender and I was like, ‘That’s really cute!’”
Hyland referred to Adams’ decision to privately message her as the perfect balance of “sexy,” but not “aggressive.”
“I was single, obviously, and was like, ‘This is really awesome. You’re being very forward,” she said at the time. “But very confident and sexy, and I liked that.”
The twosome took the next step in their relationship during the summer of 2018 when they decided to move in together in Los Angeles.
Hyland later credited Adams for helping her cope with with kidney dysplasia, a debilitating illness that once led her to contemplate suicide.
“He’s seen me at my worst,” she told Self magazine in December 2018. “I think that’s why I feel the most beautiful in his eyes, because he still finds me beautiful after seeing all that. It was a really intimate start to a relationship to have to go through those hurdles at the very, very, very beginning when you’re just even getting to know a person.”
Adams, in return, called his girlfriend the “real-life version” of Wonder Woman that same month.
“Imagine having a vital organ replaced. Imagine having 16 surgeries, going to hundreds of doctors visits and taking thousands of pills. Imagine losing crazy weight because of dialysis, medication side effects and stress. Then imagine, having to do it all over again. This time keeping it quiet while you recovered, all while trolls on the internet judged you for your appearance,” the podcast host told Us Weekly exclusively of Hyland’s health journey at the time. “Oh, and throw in filming the funniest show on TV and executive producing and starring in a movie … and never breaking down. Never losing it. I know Gal Gadot is Wonder Woman on film, but Sarah is the real-life version.”
Adams and Hyland got engaged in July 2019. “That can’t eat, can’t sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series kind of stuff,” the comedy actress captioned a photo from the beach proposal, quoting the 1995 film It Takes Two.
Scroll through to revisit their love story:
