A Timeline of Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe's Relationship

Bird and Rapinoe first met during a photo shoot at the Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro in August 2016, per Us Weekly. According to Bird, however, their first meeting was awkward on all counts. She revealed to NBC Sports (via Us Weekly) at the time, "We kinda crossed and she was like, 'Oh, hey! Ready for your game?' I was like, 'ha-ha . . . funny.'" Rapinoe hasn't forgotten the encounter, and Bird jokingly explained, "I walked away like, 'I thought you were supposed to be cool?' We joke about it now cause she was a total dork."

While Rapinoe has been out since 2012, it took some time for Bird to publicly open up about her sexuality. In 2017, she officially came out as gay in an interview with ESPNW. "I'm gay. Megan's my girlfriend. . . . These aren't secrets to people who know me. . . . I don't feel like I've not lived my life. I think people have this assumption that if you're not talking about it, you must be hiding it, like it's this secret. That was never the case for me," she explained (via Bleacher Report).

Bird continued to address critics who questioned why she made the decision to make the announcement later in life, saying, "Even though I understand there are people who think I should have done it sooner, it wasn't right for me at the time. I have to be true to that. It's my journey."

Throughout their relationship, Bird and Rapinoe haven't been shy about showing each other love and support in the public eye. In October 2019, Rapinoe gushed about her then-girlfriend to People, telling the outlet, "We are huge fans of each other. I have become, like, a Seattle Storm number one superfan, of course. . . . I think it is just the understanding of what we have to go through and the appreciation of, you know, each other's skills and lives is really special. And in the same sense, we are just normal to each other. Which is really nice."

In October 2020, Bird announced her engagement to Rapinoe in a captionless picture on Instagram that showed Rapinoe proposing. Their engagement took place amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, which put wedding plans on hold. However, Bird revealed in a December 2020 interview with People that the pandemic also allowed them to have a more relaxed approach to wedding planning. "In some bizarre way, COVID has given us an excuse to not think about [the wedding] and we can kind of focus on our careers, because that takes so much time," Bird said. "I think we are both totally okay with the fact that this might not happen for a year, maybe two. . . . We've always kind of known that this was forever, so we aren't necessarily in a rush."

Bird spilled about wedding details to People once more in a March 2022 interview, telling the outlet, "Ironically, this is like I said, honestly, stars aligning seems to be the theme. We're kind of toying with having a wedding in Mexico maybe. So there'll definitely be Coronas on deck, I can count on that for sure."

As if Bird and Rapinoe couldn't be any cooler, the two started their own production company in December 2022. According to Variety, the company, A Touch More, is dedicated to highlighting stories of revolutionaries who move cultures forward.

The duo started the company to "bring a touch more understanding, connection, entertainment, and conversation to the evolving media landscape" by bringing awareness to causes and stories of forgotten groups, including the LGBTQIA+ community, people of color, and women. "A Touch More is a manifestation of our values, and our desire to bring to the surface stories of those who shape and move culture forward. We're incredibly excited for some of the projects we have in the works and can't wait to share more about this next chapter," Bird and Rapinoe said in a statement.