As Zayn Malik tells it, he and now-girlfriend Gigi Hadid met at the Victoria's Secret Show after party in New York City on November 10, 2015. He went up to her because he recognized her "from her picture," he told ES magazine, and they had their first date later that week at The Bowery Hotel's restaurant Gemma.
But that wasn't the first night the two actually talked—they connected years before, Gigi Hadid told Ellen DeGeneres this week. "We actually met at a friend's birthday party a few years ago," she said. At the time, Malik was likely dating his former fiancée Perrie Edwards (whom he was with from 2011 to August 2015), and Hadid was likely with singer Cody Simpson (whom she dated on-and-off for about two years, until May 2015).
Hadid was super interested in Malik—and went out of her way to make their reunion happen in 2015 when they were both single. "He was in New York to come to the Victoria's Secret show last year, I think, and ended up not coming. And I was like, 'I'll play it cool. Like, I'll go to the after party.' He was there. And then later that week we ended up going on our first date."
The spark was instant. "We played it cool for like 10 minutes and then I was like, 'You're really cute.'" Hadid said. "We connected like, really quickly and just—we just started, like yeah, we had the kind of same sense of humor and [started] sharing videos and obviously Noah Ritter videos started coming up…" One year later, they're still going very strong:
Watch Hadid's full interview below:
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she's not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.
