When she was just 11 years old, Paige Anne stood in the middle of the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, surrounded by thousands of spectators, and performed the national anthem ahead of a matchup between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder.
The singer from Idaho Falls had won an audition to perform at the game in 2017 — an audition that almost didn’t happen because she was feeling sick. But, as her mom recalled to EastIdahoNews.com at the time, Anne said a prayer before the audition and her “voice came out of nowhere” and “blew (the) judges away.”
Her performance at that Jazz game ended up going viral and launched a number of opportunities for her, the Deseret News previously reported.
Now, eight years later — and after an impressive “American Idol” run that saw her reach the show’s top 20 — Anne has again gone viral for performing at a Utah Jazz game.
But this time, the reason is completely different.
Paige Anne performs at a Utah Jazz game — and gets engaged
Since her debut Utah Jazz performance, Anne has sung the national anthem at the Delta Center at least 10 times throughout the years, EastIdahoNews.com reported.
But in retrospect, there was at least one sign that her performance on Dec. 20 would be different from the others.
“I had to get my national anthem down to 90 seconds, and I’ve never had to do that before,” Anne told EastIdahoNews.com. “That probably should’ve perked my ears. They were like, ‘It’s for broadcasting and sponsors.’”
The real reason, it turns out, was much more surprising.
As Anne finished the national anthem and started walking off the court, her boyfriend, Bridger Gose, approached her with a ring and got down on one knee.
The visibly shocked singer also got down on one knee for a second before standing back up to cheers throughout the arena, as seen in an Instagram reel shared by the Utah Jazz. She nodded her head and wrapped her arms around Gose. The Jazz Bear then approached her with a bouquet of flowers.
The moment has gone viral, with shares coming from major outlets including ESPN and the NBA.
“SHE SAID YES!” the Utah Jazz shared in a post on Instagram. “What better way to end your national anthem performance than to get engaged?”
“Pop star Paige Anne delivered an amazing national anthem and then got proposed to in Utah,” the NBA captioned the video on TikTok.
To pull off the moment, Gose told EastIdahoNews.com he had to get a background check and permission from the NBA, ESPN and the Delta Center. Approval to propose on the court, he said, didn’t come until about four days before the game.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to surprise her,” Gose said. “I thought she’d find out in some way, so when she was actually surprised, I think we were equally surprised.”
In a TikTok video, Anne said the proposal came as a complete surprise to her — she and Gose actually had plans to go ring shopping just a couple of days later.
“It was so awesome that the entirety of the Utah Jazz staff was in on it,” she said. “And it was just such an amazing thing for them to do and put together for me. And it was just so special.”
A look back at Paige Anne’s run on ‘American Idol’
Anne was 16 when she tried out for “American Idol”— an audition that stood out, in part, because she brought snow cones for “Idol” judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie, and gave a shoutout to Tropical Sno in her hometown of Idaho Falls, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Although her nerves affected the start of her audition, by the time she got to the end of Pink’s “What About Us,” the judges were visibly impressed with her powerhouse vocals.
“I was praying for that one note, and you hit it,” Richie said, per Deseret News. “And that was when I said, ‘show business.’”
Although Perry did not vote to push Anne through to the next round, both Richie and Bryan gave the singer a “yes” and sent her through.
“This audition means literally the world to me,” Anne said.
At one point during her “Idol” run in 2023, Anne got eliminated from the competition following a sing-off with a fellow contestant. But when the show had an unexpected dropout, Anne was the first alternate to fill that open slot, per Deseret News.
She was ultimately eliminated after reaching the top 20.
“New flex- i’ve been eliminated not ONCE but TWICE on @americanidol,” Anne shared on X following the elimination. “All jokes aside I LOVE YOU ALL and this is just the beginning.”