Before Her Engagement to Damiano David, Dove Cameron Played a Marvel Villain You Probably Forgot

So, Dove Cameron might be off the market. And yes, the way this news dropped is a little funny: an engagement rumor out of Sydney somehow turned into me revisiting her A-tier villain stint on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But stick with me, because both are worth talking about.

So about that engagement...

TMZ says Dove was spotted in Sydney wearing what looked very much like an engagement ring, and the guy next to her was exactly who you think it was: Damiano David, the Italian musician you know from Maneskin. For what it is worth, the 'allegedly engaged' phrasing is doing a lot of work here — nobody has confirmed it on the record, but the ring-watch is real.

How we got here

Dove and Damiano have been orbiting each other for a while. She told Cosmopolitan that they first met backstage at the 2022 MTV VMAs, when both were nominated. Things progressed quickly after that — private dinners, public sightings — and by late 2023 the media was basically treating them as a couple.

'And then very quickly it became "Let's have dinner at 8:00 at this spot." He's a Capricorn, so he was very much like, "Okay, these are my intentions." It was super honorable. He's like a 1950s gentleman, angel, teddy bear. He's the best person I've met in my life.'

• 2022: They meet backstage at the MTV VMAs while both are nominees.
• Not long after: She pops up at a Maneskin show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The fan-radar starts pinging.
• September 2023: The press begins tracking them as a couple.
• February 2024: A record label exec posts something on Instagram that pours gas on the dating rumors. The same weekend, they show up together at Clive Davis's pre-Grammy gala — which reads as a pretty loud soft launch.
• About a month before the ring sighting: Dove posts a montage on Instagram celebrating two years with Damiano.
• Now: TMZ spots her in Sydney wearing an engagement ring. The two have essentially been together for almost three years.

Quick refresher: her Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. run

If the engagement headlines sent you down a Dove Cameron rabbit hole, you probably landed on her Marvel era. She played Ruby Hale in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 — a straight-up antagonist raised by HYDRA to be the next in line. Ruby was dangerous for reasons that were more than just power levels; she was literally engineered as a weapon, which gave her an origin story that felt big enough for the MCU and bleak enough to stick.

The show pitted the team against world-ending stakes when Ruby came into play. Without spoiling old plot points for the three people who still plan to binge it, her arc tapped into that tragic, domino-effect storytelling Marvel loves — choices, consequences, and a lot of collateral fallout. It also tied the series into wider Marvel lore in ways that felt earned, while keeping the show grounded in character and team dynamics.

And yes, the thing still looked great. Even now, those action beats and effects hold up, anchored by a cast that did not phone it in — Clark Gregg, Chloe Bennet, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Iain De Caestecker, the whole crew. The series wrapped in 2020 and went out on a solid note.

Should S.H.I.E.L.D. be MCU canon? Here is my take

Villains like Ruby are Exhibit A for why S.H.I.E.L.D. deserves proper canon respect: complex origin, real stakes, ripple effects across the universe, and a storyline that actually tests the heroes. It felt like MCU cinema delivered on a TV schedule. If Marvel wants more connective tissue, the blueprint is already sitting there.

The basics (where to watch and who made it)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was created by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen, and starred Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, and Iain De Caestecker. The IMDb score sits at 7.5/10. It is streaming on Disney+ in the US.

Engagement rumors, Marvel nostalgia — a true 2-for-1. Do you want S.H.I.E.L.D. revived in the MCU? Tell me how you would do it.