Who is John Donaldson, Vanna White’s boyfriend of 12 years?

Television co-host Vanna White is more than just the 33% of Wheel of Fortune that isn’t Pat Sajak or a wheel. She’s more than the flowing epitome of grace who, across more than 40 years and just shy of 8,000 episodes, has gently encouraged us to try to spell things, and let us know by her very presence that we’ve nodded off with the TV on during Jeopardy! again. She’s also a philanthropist, a purveyor of fine yarns, and, most of all, a human being.

And human beings weren’t meant to spin life’s wheel alone. We need partnership. Camaraderie. White has all of that and more, thanks to her partner of nearly a dozen years, John Donaldson.

Donaldson — not to be confused with John Donaldson the baseball player who died in 1970 or Don Johnaldson, an evil mustachioed John Donaldson doppelganger who I just made up — met White through a mutual friend at a barbecue in 2012. The attraction was apparently immediate, and the two have been inseparable ever since. White even described Donaldson as “the male version” of herself in a recent interview with People. 

Donaldson is the founder and president of a construction company in California, JDC Construction + Development Group, which specializes in apartment complex renovations. He is best known, however, for his frequent appearances on Vanna White’s arm at red carpet events and on White’s social media accounts.

White says that she and Donaldson haven’t really considered marriage, for reasons that sound bizarrely Millennial coming from a 66-year-old. “(…) we’ve been together 12 years, and I feel like we are married,” she told People. “Do we have to get married? No, because we feel comfortable in our relationship. You know what I mean? I know that he’s the one. He knows I’m the one.” 

Vanna White has been married once before, to George Santo Pietro, a producer on projects like The Mandalorian and Rebel Moon. After 12 years and two children, the couple parted ways in 2002. Additionally, she’s been engaged twice, to Michael Kay from 2004 to until their separation in 2006, and to The Young and the Restless actor John Gibson, until his death in a plane crash in 1986.