Matthew Lawrence Opens Up Relationship with Girlfriend Chilli, Reveals How They Met

Matthew Lawrence is sharing some rare comments about his relationship with new girlfriend Chilli.

Back in January, it was revealed that the 43-year-old Boy Meets World actor was dating the 52-year-old TLC singer, whose real name is Rozonda Thomas, following his divorce from Cheryl Burke.

In a new interview, Matthew gushed about Chilli and revealed how they met.

Keep reading to find out more…

“Life is always a surprise. My life is in a complete bloom right now,” Matthew shared with Entertainment Tonight. “I get to spend time with an amazing woman like Chilli. I’ve never gotten to be able to experience that kind of relationship before, so it’s quite special. She’s a really, really special human being. I wish more people on the planet were like her. We’d be much better off.”

He continued, “She’s just got, you know, her morals and her values. The way she treats her family. She loves my family, so important. We get along. We’ll talk on the phone and she’s like, ‘My mom’s calling me.’ I’m like, ‘Go get it. I know how important that is.’ Same thing like my mom calls me. It’s not like, ‘Why are you talking to your mom?!’ It’s like, ‘Oh, your mom. Go talk to your mom,’ you know?”

Matthew went on to say that he and Chilli – who shares 25-year-old son Tron with ex Dallas Austin – had similar upbringings and that they’ve met each other’s families.

“It’s weird, you know, we have similar upbringings. We have similar families,” Matthew explained. “There are similarities that you wouldn’t necessarily think between us and it really works.”

Matthew also recalled meeting Chilli in passing at an event and said that they were friends first before they started dating.

“It was just real friendship, you know, for like five or six months, just talking on the phone long distance, like, getting to know each other, see each other here and there,” Matthew recalled. “But, really, just keeping it as friends and being, you know, let’s keep our priorities straight here. We wanna know what we’re all about. We don’t wanna take this too fast.”

Matthew continued, “So we were at this thing. We were working. We just said hello in passing and probably nothing would’ve come of that, but there was this big snowstorm. I had to be back for work, so I was getting them [the airline] to change my flights all around. The only flight I could get was a connecting flight through Atlanta. She lives in Atlanta.”

“So, she was flying on that flight. So, really it was the flight, talking and then afterwards saying, ‘Hey, let’s keep in contact.’ That’s really what made it, and it almost did not happen,” Matthew added. “I mean, literally, an hour before the flight took off they were like, ‘OK, we got you on this flight. You gotta go.’ So it was just like that kind of thing.”

Find out what Matthew‘s brother Joey Lawrence recently shared about the romance.