‘Vampire Diaries’ stars Arielle Kebbel, Zach Roerig confirm they’re dating

The Vampire Diaries went off the air nearly a decade ago, but the soapy supernatural drama is still giving fans some juicy storylines.

At a recent fan convention in Georgia, TVD castmates Zach Roerig and Arielle Kebbel confirmed that they’re dating with a very public display of affection. As captured in a fan video posted to social media, Roerig surprised Kebbel with a bounteous bouquet of flowers at I Was Feeling Epic 3 on April 6, and the couple then shared a sweet kiss.

The crowd of fans who had just attended Kebbel’s meet-and-greet event sounded off with a chorus of lovestruck oohs and ahs, and of course some hearty applause. On Instagram, Kebbel commented on a Vampire Diaries fan account that reposted the video, with the actress leaving three red heart emojis. (Reps for Roerig and Kebbel didn’t immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for further comment.)

Roerig played series regular Matt Donovan on all eight seasons of The Vampire Diaries, which ran from 2009 to 2017 on the CW. Matt stands out from the extended ensemble as the only core character who remains completely human throughout the series run, unlike characters such as Nina Dobrev’s Elena Gilbert, who begins the series as a human but becomes a vampire in season 4.

Kebbel, meanwhile, played Lexi Branson, a guest star on seasons 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8, and a recurring character in the show’s momentous fourth season. Lexi is a kindly 350-year-old vampire who makes fast friends with Elena, counseling her about the ins and outs of dating Paul Wesley’s Stefan Salvatore, another 100-plus-year-old vampire whom Lexi had been palling around with for decades.

Though Roerig and Kebbel’s characters don’t interact much on The Vampire Diaries, the couple have become the latest link in a long chain of offscreen romances started by onscreen scene partners.

Series stars Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder made their characters’ romance a reality in 2010 and dated for three years. Joseph Morgan and Persia White began dating in 2011, eventually marrying in Jamaica in 2014. And Roerig himself was previously linked to another of his Vampire Diaries costars, Candice Accola.

In 2023, Hallmark gave Roerig and Kebbel the chance TVD never allowed them — to portray lovers. The romantic comedy Love in the Great Smoky Mountains: A National Park Romance features the two as Haley and Rob, archeologists whose young love was spoiled by rival ambitions, but who get the chance to start over years later on a picturesque excavation trip.

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While Roerig and Kebbel have kept their romantic relationship relatively quiet, Roerig has talked in the past about The Vampire Diaries playing a major role in his life. In a reflection published by EW when the show was winding down eight years ago, he wrote, “For me, not only has The Vampire Diaries been the longest job I’ve ever had, but it’s been a quarter of my life… We all started this show, almost all of us, in the midst of some sort of life turmoil, whatever it may have been. And somehow through these eight years we’ve patched ourselves up and are now ready to face the world again.”