It’s the ring that didn’t get away.
Nick Viall surprised America when he bid farewell to his tumultuous bachelor days, got down on one knee and proposed to Vanessa Grimaldi with a “massive” round-cut diamond ring courtesy of celebrity jeweler and Bachelor franchise go-to designer Neil Lane. The 3.75-carat dazzler features a round-cut center diamond stone surrounded by a halo of smaller diamonds and two larger baguette-cut diamonds, plus a total of 164 round-cut diamonds.
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“I just closed my eyes and just envisioned her beautiful face” Nick told PEOPLE of the sparkler. “I knew immediately which one was perfect for her.”
And Vanessa was completely blown away, calling it “big like my personality.”
But those dedicated members of The Bachelor Nation may have noticed that the ring looks oddly familiar. And here’s why: PEOPLE has exclusively confirmed it’s the same exact one Robby Hayes picked to propose to JoJo Fletcher with on the Season 12 finale of The Bachelorette, as first pointed out by as first pointed out by Claudia Oshry (@girlwithnojob) on Instagram.
“I bring six rings and over the years, over the 9 years, some are the same, some have changed settings or are re-designed, and some are totally new,” Lane tells PEOPLE. “The most important thing is for a ring to speak to the particular man and to the woman he is in love with. If a ring doesn’t speak to one person, then it wasn’t meant to be. If that particular ring wasn’t meant to find a home with JoJo, but rather spoke to Nick and Vanessa, then that’s the way it should be. It’s found its home.”
As fans of the show know, JoJo never saw Robby’s ring, as she stopped him before he could propose. Her heart was with Jordan Rodgers, who presented her with a completely different, but equally beautiful, style: a 3-carat oval-shaped diamond sparkler hand-crafted on an encrusted band set with over 155 smaller round diamonds, which Lane called “elegant simplicity.”
How does Robby feel about it all? He’s honored.
“Did I mention that my favorite movie is ‘LORD OF THE RINGS?,’” he quipped on Instagram along with the photo of him and Neil Lane from his time on The Bachelorette, adding a string of self-congratulatory hashtags: “#bRINGit #TrendSetter #Goodtaste #NeilLane #TheBachelor #Capgenius.”
What do you think of the ring’s comeback? Share below!
–reporting by Elizabeth Leonard