LONG TIME COMING

‘Wheel of Fortune’ Star, 68, Marries Boyfriend After 14 Years

The couple first met in 2012.

Wheel of Fortune co-host Vanna White has finally tied the knot with her boyfriend of more than a decade.

“Surprise! We got married!” the 68-year-old, who has been turning letters on the puzzle board for the game show for more than 40 years, wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday, sharing photos of herself and her now-husband, John Donaldson.

The couple married in a private ceremony, and in her post Donaldson can be seen holding White as she wears a white dress. The post also features other photos of their relationship, which White noted has lasted “for more than a decade and a little while back.”

According to People, Donaldson and White met in 2012, and White immediately thought the real estate developer was “cute.”

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“I mean, we’ve been together 12 years, and I feel like we are married,” White told People in 2023, emphasizing that the couple wasn’t rejecting marriage—they simply knew they loved each other and weren’t rushing toward it.

Both the TV personality and Donaldson, who is the founder of a construction company, have been previously married.

White’s past relationships have not always ended happily. In the 1980s, she dated and became engaged to soap opera actor John Gibson, who later died in a small plane crash—an event White told Closer Weekly left her devastated.

She later married restaurant owner George Santo Pietro, and the couple shared two children during their 11-year marriage, which ended in divorce in 2002. After that marriage, White became engaged to businessman Michael Kaye, but the engagement was called off a little more than a year after the proposal.

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“Today I am happy just the way things are,” White told Closer Weekly in 2017.

Six years later, she told People that life with Donaldson remained peaceful: “He lets me be me, I let him be him. There is no drama.”

The marriage gives White a rare moment in the spotlight for herself after years of presiding over contestants’ life-changing wins, including five contestants who snagged the coveted $1 million prize.

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The news comes as White has signed on to continue co-hosting the syndicated game show through the 2025–26 season alongside Ryan Seacrest, 51, and says she is taking her long Wheel of Fortune career “one year at a time.”

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Wiktoria GuciaReporter

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