Bret Michaels Says Engagement 'Feels Awesome'

It's been quite a year for Bret Michaels. He worked with Miley Cyrus twice, suffered a serious subarachnoid hemorrhage, won "Celebrity Apprentice" and denied having an affair with Miley's mom, Tish. Now he's ended the year on a high note, asking his longtime girlfriend, Kristi Gibson, to marry him.

"They swore I was the guy who would never," he told People.com about finally deciding to put a ring on the finger of his girlfriend of nearly two decades. "And it feels awesome."

The proposal, which aired on Monday night's finale of his show, "Bret Michaels: Life as I Know It," wasn't easy to time, according to the Poison rocker, who noted that some people thought it might happen at the couple's anniversary dinner. "I wasn't ready there because I felt really strange," he explained. "It would've been like, I'm in the middle of proposing and oh, by the way, there's a Cobb salad coming."

Michaels admits that while his proposal didn't end up being as epic as he imagined it would be, it worked for them. "In my mind, it wasn't supposed to happen like that — I wanted it to be a little more like the movies, where the white horse gallops up and all that stuff. But when Kristi said, 'I don't need this ring, I don't need the piece of paper, I love you no matter what,' she took the pressure off," he said. "She used reverse psychology on me and it worked!"

Instead of getting Gibson a new piece of bling, the couple will update her "friendship ring with mega benefits." He jokingly added, "It may be the longest engagement in history, but my intentions are good."