Josh Duhamel nearly blew his chances with Fergie when the singer and her band appeared on his show Las Vegas, he reveals in a new interview.

"After they finished rehearsing, I was walking out, and all of a sudden she was walking toward me. I was like, Oh boy. She stopped. And this is so sad, but I said, in this desperate voice, 'You're hot!'" Duhamel tells Best Life magazine for its July/August issue.

"The crush of a lifetime, and that was my line!" he recalls of the September 2004 encounter. "But then an interesting thing happened. She replied, 'Yeah, I read InStyle. So ... how was I in your dream?"

(Fergie, who has revealed that she and Duhamel remain romantic because he dances for her, also told Playboy earlier this year, "I had read in a magazine that he had a naughty dream about me.")

Now, the TV hunk, 34, and the Black Eyed Peas singer, 32, have a new home together. "It's a big house," he says. "A girl like Fergie comes with stuff – a lot of stuff. And there just wasn't enough room for the stuff."

Photo by: Andrew Macpherson
And as for how their personalities mesh, despite their physical differences (he's 6'3", she's 5'4"), he says, "She's a real total star. I'm more subdued than that. I'd rather sneak up on people. But that's what makes us work. We have similar fundamental values. We both grew up in similar families. She's just got a great soul."