Rylee Arnold revealed how she met her boyfriend Walker Lyons — and it’s the stuff that fairytales are made of.
During a December 2024 interview on “The Squeeze” podcast, the “Dancing With the Stars” pro dancer revealed that she first became aware of her future beau when she ended up in an Uber that his aunt was driving.
“I get in this Uber. It’s this really nice lady,” Arnold, 19, recalled of the driver. “And we’re just like, talking about dance, and she’s talking about what she does. And also, she was like, ‘Okay, this might sound really weird, don’t take this the wrong way.’ She was like, ‘I have a nephew playing USC football.’ She was like, ‘I just have this impression that you guys would, like, really get along.’ And I was like okay and she was like, ‘Look him up on Instagram and if you want to do something with it you totally can.’”
“I looked him up and I was like, ‘Okay, he’s cute.’ So, at that point, I was like too scared to really do anything about it and so I was just kind of like put it on my back pocket,” Arnold shared.
Rylee Arnold Wasn’t Looking For a Relationship But Her Sisters Stepped In
Arnold had long said she wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. In December 2023, she told The Weekly Trash” podcast she was “in no rush” to have somebody in her life.
In September 2024, she told People magazine she loved being single. “It’s the best. I’ve been single for a while, but I love it,” she said.
On “The Squeeze,” she admitted that she “didn’t really have a desire to get into a relationship” after chatting with the Uber driver. But fate stepped in.
“I didn’t tell my family, I didn’t tell my mom or my sisters that like I was introduced to that,” she said. “And all of a sudden like a week later my sister sends a TikTok to my sister group chat she’s like, ‘Rylee this kid is playing at USC. He’s so cute, he’s your age, like you need to reach out to him.’ And I was like, ‘You guys are going to die right now, like I literally was in his aunt’s Uber like a week ago.’ They were like ‘Rylee, follow him now, follow him now.’ And then come to know that my brother-in-law is actually friends with his best friend’s dad. And so there’s a connection there,” she added.
“I followed him first on Instagram, so then he followed me back, and he messaged me, and then got my number, and we text for a while, and then he was like, ‘Can I take you on a date?’ And I was like, ‘Of course you can,'” she revealed. “That’s where it all started.”
Arnold noted that Lyons actually went to school in Utah and knew some of her friends. “We have a crazy amount of mutuals so the fact we hadn’t met before is kind of crazy, but I think we met at the most perfect time in both of our lives,” she said on the podcast.
On October 27, 2024, Arnold shared an Instagram photo of her in the arms of the USC football tight end as they posed on a football field. Other photos featured Arnold cheering from the stands as she watched her man’s college football game. “Is this a hard launch??” the ballroom pro captioned the photos of her and Lyons.
Rylee Arnold Gushed About Her New Guy Before Going Official With Him
Arnold teased that she was going on a blind date in early October via a TikTok video. The DWTS dancer told her followers that she “literally just got off the plane” from a trip to New York and was going on her first date with a new guy.
“I am excited to go on this date,” the Utah native said. “I have never met him before, but we have a lot of mutuals…interesting coincidences. And then we’ve just been texting a lot lately and I get to meet him now tonight.”
A few days later, she gave fans an update in a second video. “Fun fact, we actually hung out last night as well,” she shared. “It was a little bit more spontaneous … but we’ve hung out two nights in a row now.”
“It was so fun,” she confirmed of her date in Santa Monica with the then-mystery man. “He is so easy to talk to. We have so many similarities which is so fun to talk about. He is so sweet and humble and just has all the amazing qualities. So, I’m really curious to see how this all pans out.”
