Something you may have picked up on when watching CNBC interviews is that if an anchor or a reporter has fond feelings for his or her interviewee, he or she often finds them difficult to suppress. Joe Kernen, for example, more or less fellated David Tepper when the hedge fund manager appeared on Squawk Box a while back, telling Tepper his “entire body had chills” at the thought of having him on set (Bill Murray received the same treatment last Friday). To that end, maybe you saw Darren Rovell’s interview with Kate Upton?

On Tuesday, the CNBC reporter sat down with the Sports Illustrated‘s swimsuit edition cover model. While it’s tradition for Rovell to do so, having chatted with Irina Shayk, Brooklyn Decker, Bar Refaeli, and Marissa Miller when it was their times to shine, this year was different, because, according to Rovell, he and Kate have something special. In order to show the world what they’ve got going on, Rovell first penned an op-ed for CNBC.com noting why SI *had* to put Kate on the cover and then, later, during the live interview, got down on one knee and asked Upton to be is Valentine. Her turning him down was not even the most awkward part! Rather it was the icing on the trainwreck of awkward that included the fact that 1) Mrs. Rovell is due to give birth to their first child in a couple days and 2) that he got down on one knee, perhaps thinking in that split second between him getting into a position generally reserved for proposals and asking his question, 19 year-old Kate would shout “Yes, I’ll marry you!” and they’d run away together. While D-Rove thought all was good, he heard that some people found the exchange a bit odd and this morning sought to set the record straight on WFAN.

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