Why Shay Mitchell Isn't Making Marriage Plans With Partner Matte Babel

This isn't a pretty little lie: Shay Mitchell is happy with her life just as it is. 

And that includes her relationship status. As the Pretty Little Liars star told Alex Cooper during the May 31 episode of Call Her Daddy, she isn't interested in marrying her longtime love Matte Babel anytime soon.

"I love the word partner," she said. "He's my partner in a lot of things."

While Shay and Matte—who works with Drake as the Chief Brand Officer of the rapper's production company DreamCrew—first met when she was 19, they didn't start a committed relationship until 2017. Since then, the couple has welcomed two daughters together, Atlas Noa, 2, and Rome, who was born in May 2022. 

"He helps me with so much with my business," the 36-year-old added. "Obviously, we're partners in raising our girls together. He's my partner in life that we're living right now, and I like it."

And though Shay said that Matte sometimes refers to her as his wife, it's not a title she's looking to make official in the near future. 

"I will never like, never say never about anything," she shared when asked about marriage, "but I just was never that girl that like, who had a Pinterest board of her wedding. And my parents have been married for like 38, maybe even 40 years, and they've had an amazing relationship, but it just wasn't something that I wanted."

For Shay, getting married doesn't make her relationship with Matte any more real, adding, "I didn't feel that a piece of paper and a big celebration and a ring would like justify my love."

The BÉIS founder also elaborated on why she thinks it's so important that the age people are getting married is trending older as time goes on. 

"We're developing so much in our 20s and like what we are learning, who we are," Shay said. "And when you get together and you're married, you grow as a unit, you know, and sometimes that's great. But sometimes it's detrimental to your own development."

"And I think the reason why I've been very lucky to be in, for the most cases, you know, great relationships," she continued, "is because I've always felt pretty secure and confident with who I was first before getting into a relationship."

And though a traditional marriage does not seem to be in Shay's future, the mom of two isn't above doing something a little different to celebrate her relationship. 

"I'd love to have a commitment ceremony, maybe in like 10 years," she explained. "I could look at him and be like, ‘Hey, we should have a celebration because we just did that. Look at our girls were like in high school and like, we crushed it. We went through storms and we are here and we are standing. And we're like high five, because we just did that.'"