Jordyn Woods used to think of her boyfriend as a “brother”.
The 23-year-old model had been friends with Karl-Anthony Towns for several years before they got together in 2020 and she admitted the way she used to describe their closeness sounds “disgusting” now they are romantically involved.
She said: “Two years before, I’m like, ‘No, that’s like a brother to me’. That sounds disgusting now I know.”
Her boyfriend laughed and said: “That sounds crazy.
“Literally there was never a kiss or anything. I was just best friends. We had such mutual respect for each other.”
Jordyn thinks it is “kind of cool” to have got together with her “best friend” because they know everything about one another.
She said on her Instagram series ‘Regular-ish’: “I think it’s kind of cool dating your best friend. We know each other. We know each other’s hearts. We know each other on good days and bad days and we’ve been through a lot of bad days together.”
And Jordyn believes “timing is everything” when it came to their romance.
She said: “I felt like God was presenting us something that we just went with. And it happened to be something beautiful.”
The nature of the pair’s relationship changed last year as they supported one another through difficulties, such as the 25-year-old basketball player losing seven members of his family, including his mother, to coronavirus.
Karl-Anthony said: “Me and Jordyn met years ago knowing common people and just became friends. And ever since then, our relationship grew where we became more than friends. I’m not saying in that way, but just best friends. And then we started having a deeper relationship…
“It just so happened, the COVID came and kind of brought its challenges and it kind of forced us to either pick where our relationship was going to go as friends or something more. And we chose the latter.”
But they admitted they have had low points in their relationship, but their strong friendship has pulled them through.
The sportsman said: “I think we were open in our admiration for each other on Instagram, social media … But take the Hollywood part, there’s going to be trials and tribulations.
“There’s going to be times where we’re extremely mad at each other but we have to choose if we’re going to put our love for each other first or we’re going to put our egos first.
“Because of our close friendship when we got those arguments — just like every other couple — where it looked like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work out or not,’ it was our communication that got us out of there. It made us so much stronger and closer.
“Because of the way we became a couple, we saved ourselves so much trouble and obviously detriments.”
After celebrating their first anniversary in May, Jordyn and Karl-Anthony are looking forward to the future.
Jordyn said: “It doesn’t feel that long because we have such a close bond and because we were friends before. We made it!
“One year down, many more to go.”
