WASHINGTON, October 9 (RIA Novosti) – Ukrainian world heavyweight boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko is engaged to marry US actress Hayden Panettiere, the actress announced on US television Wednesday.
“I think it speaks for itself,” Panettiere, 24, said on the ABC television network’s morning show “Live With Kelly and Michael,” holding her left hand up to the camera to show a large ring on her ring finger while a large python was wrapped around her neck.
Panettiere’s announcement comes just days after Klitschko, 37, won a unanimous decision against Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin in Moscow early Sunday morning to retain the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO belts – a fight that the American actress attended.
Klitschko “did an amazing job” in the fight, “and Alexander Povetkin: my hat’s off to him,” Panettiere, the star of the television show “Nashville,” said.
Klitschko and Panettiere reportedly began dating in 2009 but broke up two years later before subsequently reconciling.
“It’s like the 2.0 version. I’ve always had great relationships and stayed really good friends with the guys I’ve dated,” she told Glamour magazine in April.
In her television interview Wednesday, Panettiere alluded to tense relations between Russia and Ukraine, which have been strained recently over Kiev’s plans to conclude a series of free trade agreements with the European Union – a move Russian President Vladimir Putin this week said would hurt economic ties between the two countries.
“It was pretty intense,” she said of the Klitschko-Povetkin fight. “The political situation between Russia and Ukraine is a little funny, and Wlad’s brother is in politics.”
Klitschko’s older brother, reigning WBC heavyweight champion Vitaly Klitschko, leads the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party and has said earlier this year that he is mulling running for president of the former Soviet republic.
