David Hasselhoff is engaged

David Hasselhoff has got engaged.

The 63-year-old actor popped the question to his girlfriend Hayley Roberts, whom he met back in 2011 when she asked for his autograph, over a beach-side picnic in Malibu.

Speaking of his decision to get down on one knee recently, the former ‘Baywatch’ star said: "I had a saying, ‘You don’t get married because you want to live with someone, you get married because you can’t live without them.’ I felt that way. I knew that I was really unhappy without her."

But the proposal didn’t go quite to plan as the 36-year-old blonde beauty thought her beau was pulling her leg at first.

Speaking to HELLO! magazine, she explained: "I thought he was just joking around at first. He’s asked me before, but it was never for real. Then he pulled out the ring. I cried so hard that he didn’t get around to actually asking, ‘Will you marry me?’ until about 10 minutes later."

And, although their 27-year age gap has been the hot topic of conversation in the past, the couple don’t want to waste time fretting about the future and rather live for the now.

Hayley said: "I don’t want to miss out on being with someone I love because of what might happen down the line."

Meanwhile, this may be the first time the sales assistant has walked down the aisle but it will be the third time lucky for David as he was previously married to singer Catherine Hickland for five years before they split in 1989.

He then went on to wed actress Pamela Bach, with whom he has two children, Hayley, 23, and Taylor-Ann, 25, in 1989, but they split in 2006.