Tyler Cameron says proposing to his fiancée Tate Madden was nothing like the calm, collected moment he had imagined.
The 33-year-old Bachelorette alum admitted that he completely lost his words when the time came to ask Madden to marry him during their beach proposal on Florida’s Little Palm Island.
“The proposal was nerve-wracking because everything I wanted to say was gone,” Cameron told PEOPLE after the Dancing with the Stars season 35 cast reveal.
“I freaked out. I wrote [my proposal speech] before so I could share it with [Madden] no matter what, but it all left me. I freaked out,” he added.
Cameron said the moment got the better of him even though he is “usually calm, cool and collected.”
He and Madden first met in 2022 while working on his home renovation show, Going Home with Tyler Cameron, where Madden worked as a photographer. He later spoke about dating “a great girl” before publicly confirming their relationship in September 2024.
The couple announced their engagement on Instagram on August 15, sharing photos from the proposal.
Now, Cameron is also preparing for another major moment. He will compete on Dancing with the Stars with professional dancer Sharna Burgess, and Madden plans to be there every week.
“She’s a dancer herself,” Cameron said. “So, she’s pitching herself seeing Sharna and Witney [Carson] and all these other amazing cast members. This was her dream as a little kid, too. So to be here, she’s just eating this up.”
For Cameron, agreeing to join the dance competition was much easier than getting through his proposal speech.
He described his response to the opportunity as “the quickest ‘yes’ ever.”
“I mean, to get to be in this room, do this dance, do all these things, have an amazing part like this. It’s an incredible journey that you’re going to look back on forever,” he said.
