Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images / Angela Weiss/Getty Images for The LA Gay & Lesbian CenterTom Daley and Dustin Lance Black's romance is certainly one of the biggest surprise couplings of the year.
On Monday, the Olympic diver, 19, revealed on YouTube that he has been dating a man since the spring. About 24 hours later, E! News was the first to report that his boyfriend, who he met through mutual friends, is the 39-year-old Oscar-winning writer and LGBT activist.
Here, we give you five things to know about Mr. Black:
1. California Boy: Black was born in Sacramento. He lived in San Antonio, Texas before moving back to the Golden State when he was just 13.
2. School Days: Black graduated with honors from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television 1996. He came out as gay during his senior year.
3. Writer's Block: Black was the only writer with a Mormon background on Big Love, HBO's series about a polygamist family. He also penned Pedro, a 2008 biopic about Pedro Zamora, a star of MTV's Real World who died of AIDS. He wrote J. Edgar for director Clint Eastwood and is currently working on scripts for Ron Howard and Robert Zemeckis.
4. Director's Chair: He may be best known for winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Milk in 2009, but Black also wrote and directed Virginia starring Jennifer Connelly. In the spring, he'll jump the pond to Daley's native U.K. to direct The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, an adaptation of Jennifer E. Smith's young adult novel of the same name. Yup, Black wrote that script, too.
5. Wedding Plans: Black is a founding board member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the sole sponsor of the federal challenge to California's Proposition 8 which succcessfully overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage. 8, a play Black wrote based on the historic trial, had one-night only benefit readings in New York and Los Angeles starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matthew Morrison, Matthew Bomer, Jane Lynch, Kevin Bacon, Morgan Freeman and Ellen Barkin.