Daniel Matsunaga and Heart Evangelista share a sweet moment at the Yes Pinoy Foundation event at NBC Tent last Sunday, February 27.

“It just happened, you know? It’s like, happened. She’s there, and she’s super nice and everything. And then boom!”

This is how Brazilian-Japanese model-actor Daniel Matsunaga describes his experience of falling in love with girlfriend Heart Evangelista. It was a happy incident, he says, and it had nothing to do with Heart’s celebrity status.

“Not really. I’ve met so many big stars, supermodels, top models. I have met so many of them from all over the world. Just happened,” Daniel tells PEP (Philippine Entertainment Portal) in an interview last month.

Heart Evangelista, binalikan ang naging relasyon niya kina Jericho Rosales, Daniel Matsunaga | PUSH.COM.PH

Daniel and Heart met on the set of Langit Sa Piling Mo, a GMA-7 soap opera in 2010. Heart played the love interest of Mark Herras, and Daniel did not end up with her.

During tapings for this show, however, Daniel says he began to fall in love with the young actress.

Daniel says it was Heart who volunteered to help him memorize his Tagalog lines, because he always had a hard time understanding them.

“We start speaking with each other, like, she helped me a lot with my lines in Tagalog there. Everything, like, everything that I had most hard time, she was there, helping me. So the, I was like, oh my God, you know? Like, she’s really famous, sikat siya. And then, why is she doing this, you know? She’s really nice person, I was like, oh, she’s really nice,” he explains.

Pretty soon, he began going out with Heart’s friends.

He continues, “And then, things were going well, then, start to hang [out] with the same people, you know. We have this group called Tomato Group. Tuesdays, we meet them. So everybody’s always together, then we start dating.”

The Tomato Group consists of Heart’s “makeup artists, some of the hairstylists,” and some people from GMA-7.