GMA’s Will Reeve confesses how star-studded night out ‘ruined’ fiancée’s birthday: ‘Didn’t go so great’

Will Reeve’s many fans know him for his work as an ABC News correspondent, but do they know he is a basketball fanatic too? On April 21, he took his fiancé, Amanda Dublin, to the first round of the NBA playoffs as a birthday gift – a sweet idea with a slightly sour ending.

The two watched their team, the New York Knicks, face off against the Detroit Pistons at Madison Square Garden. Will wasn’t the only celebrity in the crowd. He and Amanda were joined by Ben Stiller, Timothée Chalamet, Paul Rudd, and 50 Cent. The game was an intense matchup, especially since the Pistons won their last playoff game 17 years ago.

Naturally, the Pistons chose this game to turn things around, at the expense of Will and Amanda’s big night.

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“It didn’t go so great,” Will said. “It kind of ruined Amanda’s birthday [because] the Knicks didn’t pull out the win.”

Love and Basketball is real!

Even though the Knicks lost, the couple made the most of it. Will later confirmed that Amanda enjoyed it, despite the loss. The two got engaged in November 2024 in front of a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Empire State Building – a rom-com worthy setting for two people who mainly keep things low-key. 

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While they’ve been dating since at least April 2023, their relationship flies largely under the radar, apart from occasional posts on social media. For Amanda’s birthday, Will shared a carousel of sweet photos, writing: “Scenes from my world’s latest trip around the sun. Happiest birthday @amandadubin! I love you forever”

Meet Amanda

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Amanda is a professional event planner, designer, and producer. She works alongside her mom, Victoria Dubin, at Victoria Dubin Events. Their partnership is described as a “mother and daughter team” who plan, design, and produce “extraordinary weddings, celebrations, and events.”

Amanda’s close bond with her mom is evident. Victoria often refers to Amanda as her partner in crime. The duo’s involvement in event planning makes wedding preparations easy.

“We’ve still got almost a year…until the wedding,” Will told Kelly Ripa on Live with Kelly and Mark! “We’ve basically got almost everything done.”

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Sports and Family

Will’s love of sports runs deep, and not just because he’s worked in it. 

“We shared a very deep bond in general, but sports was definitely a major component of our family bond,” Reeve told PEOPLE.

It was a way he connected with his father, the late actor and activist Christopher Reeve. Despite becoming paralyzed in 1995, Christopher made every effort to attend Will’s games. The day before he died in 2004, he spent the afternoon watching Will play hockey.

Will was only 11 when his father passed away and 13 when his mother, Dana Reeve, died of lung cancer. After losing both parents within 17 months, he moved in with close family friends in his hometown of Bedford, New York.

Life in service

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Today, Will honors his parents’ legacy as a board member of the Christopher and Diane Reeve Foundation, which supports groundbreaking research and advocates for people with spinal cord injuries. 

In May 2023, he covered a story for Good Morning America about a man with paralysis who regained the ability to walk, thanks to a breakthrough in AI-assisted brain-spine communication. Take a look at his interactions with his GMA co-hosts below.

“If I can be a proud son for a moment,” Will said. “You can draw a straight line from [my father’s] advocacy to developments like today.”

He added: “He would be the first in line to sign up for this procedure.”