Viewers who tuned in to learn the winner of American Idol on Monday (May 21) got more than the bargained for. Maddie Poppe was crowned the winner, but it was also revealed that she and fellow Top 2 finalist Caleb Lee Hutchinson are an item.

Perfect, right? Just one day after her big win, Poppe reveals why she and Hutchinson decided to keep the romance a secret for so long.

"We didn’t really want people to think that we weren’t focused on the show, and also Cade and Gabby had just kind of announced that they were dating, and so we didn’t want to take away their thunder, you know," Poppe tells Yahoo. "Caleb and I kind of joked, when people would ask about us, that we were cousins!"

Believe it or not, the two were actually dating during a good portion of the show. "We started dating around the Top 24 week, and we’d noticed that there were some other couples who had gotten split up along the way ..." Poppe recalls. "I mean, it's just my conspiracy theory, but we really didn’t want anybody to know [we were an item], because we didn’t want the producers to find out and split us up!"

Now that their romance is no longer a secret, the couple seem awfully comfy sharing their love with one another over social media, with Hutchinson sending a heartfelt note to his love over Twitter hours after Poppe's big win:

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