De Bruyne has two children — Mason and Rome — with his wife Michele, whom he married in the summer of 2017, but the story of how the pair met is a curious one.
The 27-year-old recounted how when he was on loan at Werder Bremen back in the 2012-13 season, Michele liked a tweet of his about a match.
De Bruyne, curled up in a ball on the floor fraught with embarrassment, allowed his friend to send her a message – and the rest is history.
'Says it all, no?,' he says of the Twitter exchange. 'I’m supposed to be this big footballer, and I didn’t even have the heart to slide into my future wife’s DMs! I didn’t dare!
'But thankfully, he sent the message for me, and she responded. We got to know each other over text for a few months. It’s a lot easier for me once I get to know someone, so after that, I was good. It really was a beautiful thing. She changed my life in so many ways. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without her.'
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