Michael Clifford, the lead guitarist of the popular punk-pop group 5 Seconds of Summer, got engaged to his girlfriend of three years, Crystal Leigh, Wednesday evening in Bali. The pair were celebrating their anniversary and—unless you are in the camp of people who refer to 5SOS as a boy band and refuse to believe boy bands should or could ever wed—none of this comes as any real surprise. The two are inseparable and have been for quite some time. As someone who loves love and radio pop, I was delighted by the news until I did a tiny bit of research and learned that the engagement was most definitely spon-con.
And this was not like Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra cutting a deal with People Magazine for exclusive access and photo rights to their wedding, a pretty standard practice for all manner of celebrity life events. This engagement appeared to be a full-on trip to the other side of the planet, sponsored by Guess.
The first few clues arrived in the week leading up to the engagement via Guess’s and Leigh’s own Twitter and Instagram pages. She and the corporation shared seemingly professional, lovey-dovey photographs with the hashtag #DestinationGuess.