Dylan Sprouse and Barbara Palvin Break Silence on Home Invasion (Exclusive)

Sometimes true love really does start by sliding into their DMs. 

Such was the case when Dylan Sprouse fired off a hopeful missive to the model he chatted up at a 2018 industry event. Then future bride Barbara Palvin left him on read for the better part of a year.

"I was like, 'Hey, I don't know if you're in New York for very long, but we should hang out if you want to. Here's my number,'" he told W Magazine of his opening salvo to the 32-year-old after discovering she had followed him on Twitter. "And she didn't message me for six months."  

The Hungarian-bred beauty had her reasons. For all the reports attaching her to the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Justin Bieber, this was a bold-faced name she thought just might stick—as long as they didn't do anything to screw it up. "I took my time," she explained. "I knew I wasn't in a good mindset at the time, and maybe deep inside I knew that it could be something more." 

Forever, possibly? The couple, who wed in 2023, announcing in a joint Instagram post May 14 that they're expecting their first baby. 

But Palvin's initial text launched an endless chain with the multilinguist (in addition to her native Hungarian, she speaks German, English, French and Japanese) quickly finding her digital footing.

"There's a little language barrier for me, so I was never good with texting or flirting," she admitted to W. "With Dylan, everything seemed so easy."

Eager to see if giving good text translated to IRL chemistry, Palvin booked a flight to China, deciding not to cancel even when her planned job in the country fell through. "I was like, 'Do you think that's crazy that I still want to go and see you?' because I was so excited," she recalled in a 2019 interview with People. "And he's like, 'Please come.'"

He's also the guy in the front row, offering endless encouragement, his vows to thoroughly embarrass her with his over-the-top cheering leaving her grateful her family attended the runway show's earlier viewing. 

And when she walked in the 2025 mere weeks after breaking her foot and months after she "went through endosurgery," he revealed to E! News of the procedure she endured following her endometriosis diagnosis, well, proud doesn't cover it. 

"The adrenaline's gonna kick on and she's gonna walk just fine," he noted to E!, "but I am nervous at the same time for her."

As for the after party...

While Sprouse told E! News in 2019 that they like to scope out new food spots, when it comes to their preferred date night, "Honestly, we're pretty low-key," he said. "We like watching anime and chilling inside and eating ice cream together. That's kind of our thing."

Of course, as two, young, attractive public figures, duty calls at times. 

So, in February 2019, they turned up at Vanity Fair's post-Oscars fete to hobnob with the rest of the industry's hot young things, but mostly to hold court with one in particular: Dylan's brother Cole Sprouse, who'd yet to make Palvin's acquaintance thanks to Riverdale filming requirements that kept him tied to Vancouver.

And while there are times that he and Palvin have to forge through a bit of distance, "We make sure we FaceTime once a day," she told ET in 2019. "And we just text and just send a lot of memes to each other." 

These days, she never leaves him on read. Check out the sweetest snaps from their years-long love story.