Tobin Heath and Christen Press have recently made it more clear they are a couple, but just how long they’ve been together has been a mystery.
Until now.
On a recent episode of Peacock’s “Watch with Alex Cooper,” Press revealed that the pair has been together for eight years.
“Tobin and I were not really friends. We weren’t really running in the same circles. And then as soon as I actually got to know her, there was just, like, a magnetism,” said Press. “And I was like, that’s what I want. And I never looked back. I still feel the exact same way.”
“The other day, someone just said to us, ‘Oh, you guys, these guys just met, you look like you’re in love,’” Press continued. “And I’m like, ‘No, it’s been eight years.’”
That would put the start of their relationship back to 2016, a year the pair were part of the U.S. women’s national team that lost in the Olympic quarterfinal. They would go on to win the World Cup together three years later in France.
Press and Heath were quiet about their relationship in its first years before recently becoming more open.
Press said that it was difficult to be completely transparent when they were both competing for the same spot on the USWNT.
Now, neither has played on the national team in three years and they are working together with their RE-INC media company, making it easier to be more open.
“I think there was something a little bit forbidden when it comes to navigating that situation,” Press said. “We’re both forwards so competing for a spot, competing for time. And then off the field, locking it down, being in a relationship and navigating that through the early, early stages of our relationship.”
Press added. “It wasn’t until we both weren’t playing on the same team that it was a little bit easier for us to come forward and share our relationship a little bit more.”
Though the outside world hasn’t become aware of their relationship until recently, Press said all of their teammates weren’t kept in the dark.
In addition to the USWNT, Press and Heath also played together with Manchester United in 2020 and 2021.
“Our teammates knew. … We were never, like, in the closet, like hiding it. Our people always knew what was going on with us,” Press said.
“It’s kind of this protective bubble,” Heath added. “It was kind of more normal than it sounds.”
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