Lesbians love their sport, and those who don’t like sports love entertainment, so what’s a better combination of that than WWE? Daria Berenato, known in WWE as Sonya Deville, is engaged to her partner Toni Cassano!
The 29-year-old wrestler proposed at a wine cellar cave in Towaco, NY, on February 15. Straight after Berenato popped the question with a custom-designed ring, Cassano whipped out a ring of her own!
“I proposed, then Toni’s like, ‘Grab my purse.’ And she pulls out a freaking ring box,” Berenato said to People. “And she’s like, ‘I’ve been carrying this around in my purse for four months. So whenever you proposed, I could give you a ring immediately back.’”
“It truly was the biggest blur ever,” Cassano said. “All I remember is both of us shaking so bad.”
The love is palpable. “I could go on for days about the way I feel about this woman,” Berenato adds. “I never knew love could feel so happy and safe all at the same time. I found my best friend, my soul mate and my life partner all in one incredible human. She is the epitome of my ride or die.”
Cassano has two daughters, ages 7 and 11, who Berenato adores. Marriage is an important way to symbolize Berenato’s commitment to the whole family. “To be able to show her and her two daughters how much they all mean to me was what this proposal was all about. They are my world and now we are one family forever together.”
“I wanted it to be epic,” Berenato continues. “I’ve never proposed to a woman before and I wanted this to be the most special for Toni and for her kids too.”
Berenato even included Cassano’s girls in the proposal! “I wanted to make it something that they were super involved in. But I also wanted them to be surprised because I wanted them to have a memorable moment too.”
As for how the women met, it was love at first sight. Berenato and Cassano first locked eyes in April 2022, when Cassano agreed to attend one of her wrestling shows. “This is going to sound really cheesy, but I knew [she was the one] the second I saw her,” says Berenato.
“I got her a front-row ticket to my show, and I was going to take her out to dinner after. But I didn’t have time to meet her before the show, so the first time I ever saw Toni was when I was coming out doing my entrance ready to wrestle and I looked into the crowd,” she recalls.
Surely we need a movie about this love story? Berenato’s show went too late for the couple to save their dinner reservations. They ended up in a random dive bar, where they talked until 5 a.m. over pizza. “I was instantly like, ‘This girl is the love of my life,'” says Berenato.
“She just had the most grounded, cool energy and just was so beautiful, but you could tell she doesn’t know it. She’s just so cool and humble, and I was just like, ‘This is my girl.'”
The proposal signifies a transformational arc for the WWE star. “It’s so cool to me to be in this position right now, to be engaged as a gay female in the WWE, and to have proposed to my fiancée. Because I look back at seven years ago, eight years ago when I wasn’t even openly out yet, and I was hiding relationships, and I was still trying to figure out my comfortability with being gay and who I was.”
