Amanda Kloots Reveals How She Met New Boyfriend Justin Gimelstob (Exclusive)

• Amanda Kloots made her red carpet debut with her new boyfriend, retired tennis player Justin Gimelstob, on April 28 at the Unforgettable Evening Benefitting the Women’s Cancer Research Fund.
• The Talk alum shared with PEOPLE exclusively at the Los Angeles event how the relationship “happened very naturally.”
• Kloots was previously married to Broadway star Nick Cordero, who died in 2020 at age 41 from COVID-19 complications. The pair, who had wed in 2017, shared a son named Elvis.

Amanda Kloots has a new man in her life.

The 43-year-old made her red carpet debut with retired tennis player Justin Gimelstob in Los Angeles on April 28, and she is sharing how her new relationship came to be.

“It kind of happened very naturally, which is great,” Kloots tells PEOPLE on the red carpet at the Unforgettable Evening Benefitting the Women’s Cancer Research Fund. “He’s a wonderful man, wonderful father, and I love how he takes care of me.”

Gimelstob, 48, recalls easily the “first time” he ever laid eyes on Kloots, “about a year and a half before she would actually go out [with me].”

“I saw her from a distance at the Formula 1 in Vegas, probably 18 months ago,” he says.

“We had some mutual friends, and I noticed that she likes playing tennis, and we played a little tennis just as friends. And then we’re both involved in other relationships, and then the timing worked out,” Gimelstob reveals. “And I will say, I persisted.”

Kloots adds, “Timing is everything.”

They “traveled kind of some similar circles” before they started dating, as Gimelstob notes, so Kloots says they “met as friends first” — and the same is true for how they brought their kids into things.

“He met Elvis as just friends. It was actually really natural,” she says of her 5-year-old son, who she shares with her late husband Nick Cordero, who died in 2020. “And I met his son.”

“It’s been absolutely lovely,” she continues of her blossoming relationship with the retired tennis pro, who she says is “still courting me.”

Kloots previously told PEOPLE that her late husband had “definitely given me his blessing” to start dating again.

“And he always says it’s coming. That’s one of the running themes from readings that I’ve had, that it’s coming,” she said. “‘I know you’re lonely. It’s coming.’ I don’t know. We’ll see.”