HGTV's Jonathan Scott Nearly Lost Zooey Deschanel's Engagement Ring In A Foreign Country
If HGTV star Jonathan Scott thought he was nervous proposing to his "New Girl" girlfriend Zooey Deschanel, he was in for an even more intense swarm of stomach butterflies when he realized he almost lost her stunning Van Cleef & Arpels engagement ring retailing at $41,300. (After all, the couple's engagement details might've been over-the-moon sweet, but a goofball like Scott was bound to make a goof or two, right?)
Scott shared his near brush with disaster in a November 2023 interview with Today, explaining that the day after he proposed to Deschanel at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, he, his new fiancée, and Deschanel's two kids, Elsie and Charlie, went to Paris. The "Property Brothers" star recalled thinking, "Great, I'm organized, I've got it all together."
Well, maybe not. Per Scott, he realized he had left all their valuables — the diamond ring, passports, money, and credit cards — in the safe at their Scotland hotel. What's worse? Scott came to this gut-dropping conclusion at the airport.
A trustworthy Scottish cab driver delivered Scott and Deschanel's valuables
After a few understandable minutes of freaking out, Scott told Today that he called the hotel manager to tell them his dilemma. The manager found the valuables tucked in the hotel safe and told Scott he would send a cab driver to the airport with the goods. "I'm like, What?!'" Scott recounted, incredulous that yet another stranger would be entrusted with such valuable belongings.
According to the HGTV star, the manager replied, "No one is more trustworthy than their cab drivers in Scotland." And that appeared to be accurate, as the trusty cabbie showed up at the airport with Scott and Deschanel's belongings at the exact moment their plane was boarding. The hotel safe snafu wasn't the only time Scott struggled with Deschanel's engagement ring, either.
In the couple's October 2023 People cover story, Scott revealed that, although he had saved the floral engagement ring in his phone for an entire year after Deschanel mentioned she liked it (cute!), he ordered way too big of a size for Deschanel's petite hands. In fact, that's why the $40k+ ring was in the hotel safe in the first place — ironically, Deschanel didn't want the ring to slip off her finger and be lost forever.
Zooey Deschanel's ring wasn't the only thing Jonathan Scott almost lost
Jonathan Scott and Zooey Deschanel's all-around adorable relationship has made the world collectively swoon over how devoted and compatible the duo seems to be. And indeed, their apparent infatuation makes the few slip-ups all the more heartwarming (because, like any good love story, it all worked out in the end). But a designer engagement ring wasn't the only thing Scott almost lost. He almost lost Zooey herself — over bad cell service, no less.
After meeting on a 2019 episode of James Corden's "Carpool Karaoke," Deschanel and Scott began to text each other consistently. However, when Scott took a horse-riding trip through the Rocky Mountains, his shoddy cell service caused them to break their texting streak, leaving Deschanel to wonder whether she was getting ghosted. "She thought I was blowing her off," Scott told People in October 2023. Luckily, Scott had a plan for his first text post-mountain adventure.
"The very first text I sent when I came out of the mountains was a video I recorded to a Canadian country song that she had mentioned to me," Scott told Bustle in 2022. "She was like, 'Oh, this guy likes me.' And we've talked literally every single day since." Bad cell service, too-big engagement rings, and lost engagement rings aside, when it comes to true love, it seems like all's well that ends well.