The Story Behind Selena Gomez’s Trend-Setting Marquise Diamond Engagement Ring

THE RUNDOWN

• Benny Blanco worked with two jewelers to make Selena Gomez’s bespoke marquise diamond engagement ring and fulfill a longtime dream of the singer’s.
• Gomez’s ring was designed for maximum sparkle, from the cut of the marquise center stone to the diamond pavé band.
• Jewelers spoke to ELLE about its carat size, value, setting, and why the piece is still shaping bridal jewelry trends today.

Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco are embracing their engagement era, but soon enough, Gomez will have a big decision to make: what kind of wedding band to pair with the bespoke marquise diamond ring Blanco used to pop the question.

Blanco and the ring’s designers, Katherine Theofilos Claster and Stephanie Theofilos of Abril Barret, made a thoughtful choice with the ring’s construction, opting for a raised setting on the marquise center stone so it can sit flush against a wedding band. It’s not too high though—which is for the better, Hera Fine Jewelry founder and CEO Lauren Boc tells ELLE. “I love how low to the finger it is! That’s going to make a large diamond more comfortable to wear and less likely to knock or catch against things.”

For a wedding band, Boc says, “If it were me, I’d pair this ring with a chunky gold cigar band about the same width, or a little wider, than the band of the engagement ring. That would look so bold and chic, and it would pair well the wider style of her engagement ring band.”

Gomez introduced the world to the sparkler when she announced their engagement in December. The ring made headlines—and has fueled new interest in marquise diamonds since. ELLE spoke to jewelers about the ring and its impact on bridal jewelry trends.

Here, everything to know about the one-of-a-kind piece.

In their joint Interview profile in January, Blanco and Gomez spoke about her engagement ring. Gomez noted it was inspired by her 2015 “Good for You” lyric, “I’m in my marquise diamonds, I’m a marquise diamond.”

“Ever since the ‘Good for You’ days—that was, gosh, so many years ago—that’s the diamond I’ve always dreamed of,” she said.

Gomez said he designed the ring without any help from her inner circle: “He didn’t tell any of my friends.”

Blanco added, “We talk about everything all day so—also, I never take myself seriously, so everything I say...could be a joke or a real thing.”

Blanco told Interview, “She showed me designs, and I would always throw little hints. I’d be like, ‘Yeah, but if I ever made one, would you want it like this?’ And then she changed her mind halfway through. It used to have huge baguettes on the side and then she was like, ‘I don’t want something that big.’”

“I just think it’s too much,” Gomez said.

“Yeah, so now I have extra baguettes, and we’re going to make earrings for her. She basically has three wedding rings.”

Couples having spare diamonds during the bespoke process isn’t uncommon, Hera Fine Jewelry founder and CEO Lauren Boc tells ELLE: “Designing a bespoke engagement ring is very collaborative, and clients often iterate on their ideas and refine their vision through the process. We offer multiple rounds of edits on all our custom engagement ring projects because clients revise the design quite often.”

In December 2024, one of the two Abril Barret jewelers behind the ring, Theofilos Claster, told Page Six about the design process. “We started the project earlier this year. Benny, a wonderful creative himself, had specific inspiration, including the center cut, the marquise. We worked closely with multiple approaches before our final ring. Benny had a very sharp idea of what he ultimately envisioned. We combined it with our Abril Barret sentiment to capture the essence of an heirloom piece with a modern hand.”

Selena Gomez wearing her ring with Benny Blanco at the Golden Globes.

Selena Gomez‘s engagement ring at the Golden Globes.

Blanco worked with jewelers Theofilos Claster and Theofilos to find an “exceptional” center stone. “The cut itself is art; its lines, facets, elongated shape and spread allow light to dance through every angle of the stone,” Theofilos Claster told Page Six. “It is mesmerizing. Rare and unique, the marquise is the epitome of special—romantic, timeless, antique, and modern.”

The music producer knew when he found the right diamond, Theofilos Claster said: “There is an inexplicable energy within every natural stone; it’s vital to ensure that its vibration, wavelength, energetic presence is in perfect harmony with the client’s. For this project, Benny was immediately drawn to the stone he ultimately chose. Much like love, in a room full of people, you are drawn to your soulmate. This stands true in the power of a diamond.”

Cut really is everything, Boc says, and it shows with Gomez’s stone. “With marquise diamonds, the quality of the cut is very important,” she explains. “If the cut isn’t perfect, you can end up with a dark shadow across the center of the diamond called a bow tie. There’s always going to be a bit of a break in the faceting pattern in the center of a marquise, but it shouldn’t be dark or interrupt the sparkle of the ring. Her diamond looks really beautifully cut.”

Boc called out how “well-proportioned“ it is, saying,“I think hers is the perfect balance of not too long and skinny, but still slender and elongated like you want in a marquise.”

Ann Grimmett, vice president of merchandising at Jared Jewelers, tells ELLE that she believes Gomez has a “six to eight carat marquise diamond set in a yellow gold pavé band.”

In February, Grimmett told People the ring is likely worth $225,000.

Boc gave ELLE a similar carat count, saying, “I would estimate Selena’s engagement ring to be about five carats. The prong setting is fairly clean and simple, which makes sense with such a beautiful diamond—you don’t want anything to draw the eye away from the stone.”

She had a slightly higher value range: “around $250,000 to $300,000, assuming the diamond is mined and of exceptional quality and cut.”

The sparkle doesn’t stop with the center stone. Ring designer Theofilos Claster told Page Six that the piece has “a handful of special symbols folded into the design of the ring [including the] intention of optimizing light. We wanted the ring to have an elegant lightness for a timeless and forever girl.”

A pavé diamond band brings a lot of glitter to the piece. As Boc explains to ELLE, “Selena’s ring has a pretty substantial diamond pavé band, which I love. The band is wide enough to keep that large diamond secure, and it looks proportionate to the stone. There’s been a trend of very thin engagement ring bands that’s always made me cringe as an engagement ring designer who considers durability—you can’t keep a diamond secure when it’s essentially mounted on a piece of wire.”

Gomez’s ring has been trend-setting in that respect: “We’ve been seeing clients gravitate away from those very dainty settings in the last year or so and ask for wider bands, more metal, a more substantial look,” Boc says. “Selena is definitely helping set that trend.”

It has a cathedral setting, which is “when the stone is elevated off the finger, and the basket attaches to the band with shoulders,” Boc says. “Cathedral settings typically elevate the diamond quite high off the hand, but hers still looks very low to the finger, which I love for comfort and durability with such a large diamond. We make a lot of cathedral settings at Hera—they’re a great choice for clients who want their engagement ring to stack flush with a wedding band, and add some extra durability to prevent the basket from bending or snapping if it catches on something. The shoulders on a cathedral setting act as a lateral brace, and provide extra points of contact between the basket and the band, so the basket of a cathedral setting is well secured.”

Boc explains how cathedral settings work versus other high-set engagement rings here.

Six months since debuting her sparkler, Gomez is still influencing jewelry trends. Boc has seen the impact with her own clients: “We’ve been getting more and more requests for marquise diamonds over the last year or so, and that’s accelerated since Selena got engaged. The marquise is the natural successor to the oval, which has been the trendy shape for the last few years—it’s also an elongated, soft shape with curved sides and it has the same brilliant faceting.” (Hailey Bieber’s elongated oval diamond engagement ring has similarly boosted interest in that shape.)

Grimmett says Gomez’s ring continues several trends that have been popular over the last three to five years: “This includes bigger stones, elongated fancies, delicate bands, exploration of east-west, and yellow gold. These trends were emerging and then were accelerated by celebrity engagement rings.”

Gomez’s ring in particular “brought added attention to the trending marquise. While many of these key trends show up in celebrity engagements, each ring is truly unique,” she tells ELLE.

And Steph Mazuera, who founded her own namesake brand that creates made-to-order engagement rings, credits Gomez for helping people choose the diamond shape that’s really right for them.

“People tend to have strong opinions when it comes to diamond shapes, and marquise cuts can be especially polarizing,” the jeweler tells ELLE. “The discourse around Selena’s ring is a good reminder that you don’t need to follow trends or popular opinion. The most important thing is choosing a ring that you love, even if it’s unexpected or unconventional.”