That’s amore! Jillian Michaels just tied the knot with her longtime partner, DeShanna Marie Minuto, in Italy.
Michaels and Minuto, who has taken Michaels’ last name, started dating in 2018 after they met on the exclusive dating app Raya. The fitness trainer quickly fell head over heels for the fashion designer. DeShanna is the founder of Letterino, a clothing company that creates reconstructed vintage pieces.
DeShanna is also a former D1 college athlete, so the couple shares an affinity for fitness … but that doesn’t mean she always loves Jillian’s grueling workout routines. In 2021, Jillian told People about how DeShanna complained she couldn’t walk and was “zombified” after just one day of Jillian’s workout plan.
But their love extends beyond their shared athleticism.
“She’s beautiful, she’s funny and she’s so creative,” Jillian told People in an interview about their wedding. “But all that shiny stuff in the beginning doesn’t last. So what makes you say to yourself, ‘I want to walk alongside this human for the rest of my life.’ And I take that really seriously. I’m 49. I’ve never married anyone. I just didn’t believe that there was a human I could do that with until DeShanna.”
Jillian and DeShanna gave an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at their Italian wedding to People magazine, which Jillian shared on Twitter:
— Jillian Michaels (@JillianMichaels) June 28, 2023
This is actually the third time that Jillian and DeShanna have committed their lives to each other. They had a courthouse wedding in June 2022 with an intimate audience that included Jillian’s two children. After that, the couple headed to Namibia, which is one of the most sparsely populated places on the planet.
There, the couple got married in a ceremony led by the Himba Tribe. Jillian has said in interviews that Africa is very special to them, and she has traveled there many times. She also originally tried to adopt from Africa, but later adopted from Haiti, bringing daughter Lukensia home just days after her son Phoenix’s birth.
For this third wedding, Jillian and DeShanna chose a lush ceremony in Venice, Italy. DeShanna, who is of Italian descent, says that Italy is her favorite place to visit, and what could be more romantic than arriving at a gorgeous palazzo on a Venetian boat?
“She really is my best friend and my rock,” DeShanna told People. “She has this insatiable desire to learn and that’s really been such an amazing thing for me and for us as a couple just to grow together.”
Congrats to the happy couple!
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Check out Simplemost for additional stories.
