CeeLo Green is engaged to Shani James — for a year now

CeeLo Green’s been keeping a secret: He and girlfriend Shani James have been engaged for about a year.

“Truth be told, it’s not something we wanted to promote,” the “Forget You” singer and former judge on “The Voice” told People. “We’re a collective power together because our private life is sacred. But you know what though, maybe it’s time. Maybe it is time for the world to know that I have a very secure situation and a loving woman supporting me the entire way.”

His “way,” of course, has included a legal mess that ended in him pleading no contest in August 2014 to a felony count of giving ecstasy to an unidentified 33-year-old woman during a night out in 2012. The woman woke up naked in bed with Green, police said; his attorney described their activity as “consensual,” and police didn’t file any sex-related charges.

While Green avoided jail time, he was sentenced to three years’ probation and 360 hours of community service, and ordered to complete 52 Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

As for the proposal, it was a low-key surprise. The 44-year-old singer told the magazine that they’d been looking at rings together and, four or five months later, he went back and bought the one she’d liked. Then he stowed it in some old equipment in the studio for her to discover when he asked her to reach over and grab something for him.

Then he asked her, “Well ... ?”

James, 38, said it was “the most beautiful diamond ring I had ever seen in my life.”

He said they haven’t started planning the wedding yet but predicted he’d be “very hands-on” when they got down to it.

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