EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Were Gretchen Rossi & Slade Smiley Secretly Engaged For Years? Plus, More Details On Real Housewives of Orange County Star’s Ring!

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BUSTED! Gretchen Rossi and Slade Smiley just announced their engagement. We've had some serious doubts about the timing of such engagement since rumors have been swirling for a while that Gretchen and Slave have actually been engaged for years but have been pretending not to be! 

In fact Gretchen has even been spotted on numerous occasions wearing an engagement ring that looks eerily similar to the one she allegedly just received from Slave this month! Even more interesting is that Gretchen's ring looks eerily similar to Slade's former fiance Jo de la Rosa's ring. More on that below. But first have the Real Housewives of Orange County stars been lying about being engaged for years? We think so!

Yesterday a source informed us that Gretchen and Slade attended the RHOC season 6 wrap party and announced they were engaged. And Gretchen was wearing a canary diamond engagement ring. Photo proof below!

CLICK CONTINUE READING FOR THE EXCLUSIVE!

Our source, who was present at the party, reveals that not only were Gretchen and Slave telling everyone they were engaged – but that Tamra Barney and Vicki Gunvalson's "people" were also confirming the engagement!

In between filming wrapping for S6 and beginning for s7 Gretchen was wearing the ring all over the place too. She did a couple TV appearances for local stations sporting it and even described it as an engagement ring. However in Bravo photos and footage from that party, she is not wearing the engagement ring! 

So why did Gretchen and Slade suddenly pretend they weren't engaged? Well, season 6 was when Slade's child support issues hit the media and created a ton of bad press for the fame-loving couple. Slade was remiss over $100,000 in child support, got arrested, and there was Gretchen rocking a ring that looked a lot like the $100,000 Tiffany diamond sparkler Jo was given by Slade in season 1 of the show. 

A photo of Jo's ring, and the ring Gretchen was wearing at the S6 wrap party are below. 

My guess is they were going to announce the surprise engagement at the party after a secret proposal was filmed, but given the bad press Bravo didn't want to highlight the engagement. And when Gretchen and Slade realized they weren't going to get a spinoff (or any network press) out of the deal so they squashed it and pretended it never happened.

Remember: rumor has it the proposal storyline Tamra and Eddie Judge got the following season was supposed to go to Gretchen and Slade but was switched up at the last minute due to viewer backlash and Slade's legal issues. 

GRETCHEN CALLS TAMRA'S PROPOSAL A "SCAM"! 

Moving on, Gretchen and Slade have been advertising their rings as coming from Newport Jewelers. The jeweler confirms they designed both Gretchen's ring and Slade's. Daniel Arik tells the Newport Beach Patch that Slade's ring "has the letter 'G' inscribed four times, which stands for God, his two sons and Gretchen." 

The stones in Gretchen's current ring are the same as the ones in Jo's ring (and Gretchen's old ring!) and her "go to jewelers" redesigned the "four carat round fancy yellow diamond center stone set in 18k white gold," to change the orientation of the center stone. If you look at the previous rings, the canary diamond is set vertically, but is now set horizontally. Otherwise it is the same exact stone layout. 

More photos of Gretchen and Slade at the S6 wrap party. And a photo comparing the current rings is also below!

[Photo Credits: Reality Tea, Facebook, and BravoTV

TELL US – WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ALL THE DRAMA? DO YOU THINK GRETCHEN AND SLADE CALLED OFF THEIR ENGAGEMENT BECAUSE OF HIS FINANCIAL ISSUES – OR DID BRAVO MAKE THEM?

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Another shot of Gretchen and the ring! 

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Bravo photos verifying the same outfits at the same event! 

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Looks like alllll the same stones reused over and over again to me! 

 

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