It’s official! An early Christmas present for gleeks everywhere – Glee’s Lea Michelle has confirmed that she is dating co-star Cory Monteith. The pair have been an on-again-off-again item on screen ever since the show’s first season and finally, on last week’s episode of Ellen, Monteith confirmed that life does indeed imitate art. Well, it imitates Glee, at least.

Unlike Rachel and Finn, their on-screen counterparts, the real-life pair seem very happy and stable. “No one knows me better than Cory. No one knows what it's been like to go through this more than he does … He makes me feel like I can do anything,” Lea Michelle comments in a Marie Claire interview.

Good for them, we say. A stable relationship like Mochelle’s (the newest abomination of a couple’s nickname) is a rare thing in Hollywood, so it seems only natural to root for the happy couple. However, those who were hoping that their real-life romance might add some plausibility to the Glee plotlines probably shouldn’t hold their breath. It’s unknown how long the couple has been together, but rumors about them first started surfacing this spring, and so far, the off-screen romance doesn’t seem to have impacted the show in any way.