Kevin Bacon upset fiancée Kyra Sedgwick with ring choice

Kevin Bacon feared his then-fiancée, Kyra Sedgwick, was about to break up with him when she woke up sobbing one night over the engagement ring he had chosen.

The Footloose star popped the question on Christmas Eve, and he was thrilled when his girlfriend agreed to marry him - but he had no idea she didn't like the ring he had picked and hidden in a stocking.

"I didn't tell my friends, I didn't tell family... which meant that I had to go out and find this ring all by myself and I have to tell you I'm really not a jewellery guy," the actor told Kelly Clarkson on her U.S. daytime talk show.

"I just don't get it. I'm just not good at picking something like that out. I found this ring and I thought it was banging," he admitted.

Recalling the moment of truth after the successful proposal, Bacon shared: "About three months later, we're lying in bed and she wakes up in the middle of the night and she's crying... She can't even say what's going on. I'm like, 'Oh my God, what's happened?' I thought maybe she was breaking up with me."

He went on: "And finally (Kyra) goes, 'I don't like the ring!' I talked her off the ledge. I said, 'It's alright honey, we'll go back. I don't care'."

The engagement worked out and the couple has been married for 32 years.