USA Olympic rugby star Ilona Maher reveals the message behind her viral antics

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Walking around the Olympic Village during the summer games in Paris, Ilona Maher doesn’t think it’s the US women’s rugby sevens team’s first-ever medal in the Olympics — the bronze they earned with a win over Australia — but rather her extensive presence on social media that does it.

Maher has been the center of attention in Paris and boasts a follower count of more than seven million people between her Instagram and TikTok accounts. She has become a household name thanks to the brand she’s built through her online presence, but behind the funny “Love Island” posts and other content, there is an underlying message she’s trying to convey.

“I think I want [people] to take away this idea of many sides of a woman,” Maher told The Post. “I was really happy I had a great performance in Paris because I wanted to show I was still a great athlete even though I’m funny online. I say dumb stuff and then wear makeup. There are so many sides to people and you’re not just one thing, which is what I think they put athletes in a box [for].

“I can be all these things and I can build a social media presence and I can wear lipstick when I play. That’s just me, I’m all around.”

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Maher was a pivotal piece in the Americans’ first-ever medal in the sport at the Olympics — her stiff arm during the first day of the rugby sevens tournament against Japan made headlines across the country — and her social media posts have drawn even more attention to the sport.

Her posts run the gamut from silly jokes with her teammates to poking fun at the popular reality show “Love Island.”

All of the content that she posted from the Olympic Village this year wasn’t preplanned and all came about on the spot, with her teammates serving as the sounding board for whether they felt it would be funny or not.

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“I don’t like to plan anything. I don’t like to have anything in my drafts,” Maher said. “I can barely wait to post things. I get itchy and I post things immediately when I make it. As my teammates say I tell my jokes twice, once to them and I’m like that’s pretty funny. Then I say it online. It’s genuine what you see online, it’s just me.”

After this year’s Olympics wrap up, Maher plans to take a break from social media for about a week before turning her attention back to trying to build up her brand and help grow her team’s brand as well.

Maher, for instance, partnered with Secret Deodorant and was featured in a commercial that included her teammates alongside her, which she something that was an important part of her decision to work with the company.

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“They wanted to include my team and they wanted to do an ad with my team in it and showcase rugby in a different sort of light,” she said. “I always want my teammates to be lifted up as well, so to not just see me, but the we was really great.”

Maher called the team’s medal in Paris “so important” to the growth of the sport moving forward and with the next summer Olympics taking place in Los Angeles.

Prior to the start of the Olympics, USA Rugby announced that it had surpassed 50,000 registrations for USA Youth and High School Rugby in 2024, which was a 12 percent increase from the year before.

Even before the United States won the bronze, Maher said that she had heard from more people that they were tuning in to rugby and she was seeing more followers on social media, but winning added a different element to it all.

“I think the cherry on top just to show that it needs to be taken seriously as a sport and as athletes was the medal,” Maher said. “We need to show, ‘wait a minute that’s valuable and worthy and deserving.’ In America we love winners and I think it was key to turning the tides with a medal.”

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