2 Chainz Looks Back at 'Historic' Surprise Met Gala Proposal Last Year — and Talks Married Life Now

"I could have done it a thousand places, but we were looking our best and so was everybody else in the world," he says

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Adam Carlson
Adam Carlson
Adam Carlson is a former senior digital editor at PEOPLE. He left PEOPLE in 2022.
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Published on December 6, 2019 04:43PM EST
Chainz (L) proposes to wife Kesha Ward during the 2018 Met Gala on May 7, 2018, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
Photo: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty

Looking back at his proposal to longtime love Kesha Ward at last year’s Met Gala, rapper and entrepreneur 2 Chainz tells PEOPLE the decision for such a grand romantic gesture was basically a no-brainer.

“I just knew it’d be historic. It would be in somebody’s Google search on down the line. It might be even in the history book and I’m just a debonair lil’ fella so I figured I — why not?” he said backstage on Thursday after headlining the Marquee Moments concert in Atlanta. (The event, organized by Coca-Cola, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, also featured Arrested Development, Big Boi, En Vogue, the Indigo Girls and others.)

“I figured, Why not do it here?” 2 Chainz (né Tauheed Epps) tells PEOPLE of deciding to pop the question to Ward, with whom he shares daughters Harmony and Heaven and son Halo, while on the famous stairs at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.

See Inside 2 Chainz’s Star-Studded Wedding at the Versace Mansion

“I could have done it a thousand places, but we were looking our best and so was everybody else in the world,” says 2 Chainz, 42. “So I did what I had to do, did what I wanted.”

“They’ve been together so long and have three children together that he always refers to Kesha as his wife, but they’ve never actually tied the knot!” a source told PEOPLE last May after he proposed to her.

The two wed last August at the Versace Mansion in Miami, with guests including Lil Wayne and Kanye West.

“I know Tauheed has exotic taste, so I let him take the reins of the wedding, but I gave him some guidance on what I was looking for,” Ward told Vogue at the time.

2 Chainz and wife Kesha Ward are seen at the Milwaukee Bucks vs Atlanta Hawks game at State Farm Arena on November 20, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia
From left: Kesha Ward and 2 Chainz. Carmen Mandato/Getty
2Chainz at the Coca-Cola®, Holiday Inn® and Holiday Inn Express® “We’re there, Marquee Moments” event at the Coca-Cola Roxy
2 Chainz performs at the Marquee Moments concert, organized by Coke, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, in Atlanta on Thursday. Bobby Singh

On their married life now, after so many years together, 2 Chainz demurs — but says, “We loved each other then, we loved each other the day we got married and we’re gonna love each other forever.”

“We’ve always kept our relationship more or less internal as far as how we take care of each other, take care of family,” he adds.

He and Ward, who owns an early childhood education center in Atlanta, make sure much of their private lives stays just that. Their proposal notwithstanding.

RELATED: 2 Chainz on Being Humbled by His First Grammy Win

“I’m pretty private with our family, but Tauheed convinced me to step out for the Met Gala because it’s such a big event and an honor to be invited,” she told Vogue last year. “I was truly shocked that this is what he had planned though!”

As her husband tells PEOPLE now: “The recipe that we have for our relationship has never been broken.”