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Ilona Maher isn’t content with just being an Olympic athlete. The rugby star has emerged as more than a triple threat: a body-positive TikTok sensation with 3.6 million followers, a brand ambassador for the likes of Secret deodorant and L’Oréal Paris and the newly minted Best Breakthrough Athlete at the 2025 ESPY Awards.
The 28-year-old rugby star has also partnered with TJ Maxx, her first major retail sponsorship, to award sponsorships to 10 women alongside hairstylist Jen Atkin, designer Carly Cushnie, piano prodigy Chloe Flower and Broadway’s Renée Elise Goldsberry. You Sponsored by TJ Maxx provides opportunities through funding, tools, knowledge, connection and visibility for those who want to do it all, like Maher.
“I’m really honored they chose me as somebody who makes my brand authenticity,” Maher tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It’ll be good to connect with some of those who’ve been chosen and maybe give a little bit of insight for them, but they can teach me things as well.”
Maher admits she doesn’t know everything there is to know about starting a business. The truth is, she’s created one by being herself. The athlete helped a niche sport like rugby become a sensation, after her 2020 Tokyo Olympics videos went viral on TikTok and when she helped Team USA win bronze — the United States’ first medal in the sport — at the 2024 Paris games.
“To be the face of it worldwide has been so cool, but also I hope to see more,” she says. “I hope to see more of us getting out there. I want more superstars. The influencer thing is cool. I think that to me, number one, I’m an athlete, I’m an Olympian, that’s who I am.”
Maher didn’t set out to become an influencer. She just wanted to “live comfortably playing rugby” — and that means she needed sponsorships. “[For] TJ Maxx to see that in me and to want to sponsor me has been so awesome because I’m a female athlete in a sport that’s really up and coming,” she says. “So I saw it as an opportunity and it’s interesting when people like to call me an influencer/content creator because I’m like, yeah, I am. But I am an Olympic medalist. But it’s changed my life in many ways.”
One of the most meaningful — and empowering — shifts in Maher’s life has been using her platform to reach millions of women navigating a social media landscape saturated with #SkinnyTok and content glorifying weight loss. She’s gone viral for challenging toxic beauty standards and calling out outdated metrics like BMI. While online trolls debate whether she’s “overweight,” Maher is busy landing a cover of Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition and strutting down the runway in a bikini at the magazine’s Swimsuit Show.
She’s comfortable showing her strength in a bikini. “This summer, I’m wearing the tiniest bikinis,” she says. She’s a big fan of Monday Swimwear and Australian brand Budgy Smuggler, in addition to the ones that “come free in the mail.”
When she’s not hanging in bikinis, she’s traveling. In her carry-on, Maher always has a bullet journal to “write down my little thoughts” and her Kindle full of romance books, “so no one knows the crazy things I’m reading at the airport,” she says.
The budding creator also carries around the viral clip-on Amazon light and an Octobuddy for easy content on the go. “You just have to post it,” she says of finding time to make so many videos.
Newmowa 60 LED High Power Rechargeable Clip Light
Although she’s become known for her bold lips, Maher’s usually not wearing makeup in her videos and mainly focuses on skin care. She loves Paula’s Choice moisturizer: “I like to keep it pretty simple to keep the skin fresh,” she says. When she does get glam, she focuses on grooming her brows, applying a little mascara and finishing with Maybelline Super Stay Matte Ink lipstick, which has become a signature look for her. “For games, I wear Self Starter, which is kind of a coral-y one,” she says. When she wants a bolder look, she goes for a “classic red” called Pioneer.
Maybelline Super Stay Matte Ink Liquid Lipstick, Self-Starter
One thing she’s not? A wellness girl, at least not in the TikTok “clean girl” way. “I like a smoothie here and there,” she says. “I think wellness doesn’t have to be strict. It isn’t the same [for everyone.] I forget to take my supplements most of the time and I love dirty martinis.”
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