Minka Kelly Gushes About Boyfriend Dan Reynolds to Drew Barrymore After Awkward Jenna Bush Hager Moment

Minka Kelly is opening up about her relationship with Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds.

The Champagne Problems actress appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show on Wednesday, Nov. 19, and spoke about her boyfriend and how they first met.

Barrymore, 50, asked Kelly, 45, if it was true that Reynolds, 38, read excerpts from her book, Tell Me Everything: A Memoir, before they met in person.

Kelly explained that a mutual friend told them they should connect. But before they met in person, they Facetimed and texted each other because she was out of the country working.

“And I accidentally just said, ‘What a crazy day today, I just turned in my final pages of my book,’ ” she recalled. “And he was like, ‘I wanna read it.’ So I was like, ‘Well, okay, well, here you go. You’ll either be terrified and run for the hills, or you’ll see the beauty in all of it.’ “

“He fortunately was the latter, and it just made us closer,” she said.

Barrymore then added, “I mean, god, if we could all come with a dossier about our lives, how amazing would that actually be?”

The two actresses’ conversation follows Kelly’s awkward interview on the Today show just one day earlier, when Jenna Bush Hager tried to ask about Reynolds.

Kelly appeared as a guest on Tuesday, Nov. 18, to promote her new Netflix holiday movie, Champagne Problems. Once they finished discussing the film, Bush Hager, 43, tried to segue into a conversation about Kelly’s boyfriend.

“Speaking about the holidays and love and this romcom, you have a very big love in your life right now,” Bush Hager said. “Talk about your relationship — if you feel comfortable.”

Kelly appeared uncomfortable at the topic change, but the morning show host persisted. “I think you posted this birthday message saying he healed wounds he didn’t inflict,” Bush Hager said. “That’s beautiful.”

“Yeah. It is beautiful,” the Ransom Canyon star agreed. “I feel very lucky, he’s a really good guy.”

Bush Hager then got the message. “Okay, sounds like you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine,” she said.

The Friday Night Lights star and Reynolds have been dating since 2022, following Reynolds’ divorce from his ex-wife Aja Volkman.

Reynolds previously told People that he and Kelly spoke on the phone for a month; it was a “really strange and awesome way” for the couple to bond. They then exchanged their work, and he read her book excerpts while she read his songs for the band’s Loom album.

The musician said that he thinks it helped the pair “understand each other on a deeper level quite quickly.”

“I’ve never had that kind of introduction to someone,” the singer said, as he recalled “hearing all her life stories from youth to now” before he’d even met her in person.