Ilona Maher knows that you can’t grow a sport by playing it safe, and she’s proving that in big ways. While she’s clearly loving her role as a “superstar” of rugby, Maher is all about pushing the sport forward by shining a light on more athletes. At 28, she’s already made waves, helping the U.S. team claim a bronze medal in rugby sevens at the 2024 Paris Olympics. But now, she’s set her sights on something different: the 15-a-side game. On January 6, she made her debut for the Bristol Bears in Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR), jumping into the final 20 minutes of their 40-17 loss to Gloucester-Hartpury at Ashton Gate.

Maher’s signing in December caused a stir, and the buzz around her debut was so huge that the Bears had to move the match to a larger venue, from their usual 2,000-seat Shaftesbury Park to the 27,000-seat Ashton Gate. The result? A record-breaking crowd of 9,240 fans packed into the stadium, the largest ever for a Bristol Bears women’s home game. Maher wasn’t just content with playing; she proceeded to engage fans by spending over 90 minutes after the match autographing and posing for pictures with fans. She was really a star indeed.

This was not just a wise career decision for Ilona to join the Bristol Bears; it also worked out tremendously for the Bristol Bears. She is being paid roughly between $36,622 and $42,726 for the three months she inked with the team, but the financial impact on the team was even more impressive. With tickets base priced at $80 each, that one game alone raked in over $739,200 in ticket sales. It’s a win-win, proving that Maher’s involvement is propelling the sport forward while generating high revenues for the Bears. So what’s behind her fame?

Ilona Maher takes on the haters

Being a loudmouth has its perks, or rather, it has been Ilona Maher’s advantage. Of course, she draped herself as an Olympic rugby player and a member of the United States rugby women’s team that won the bronze in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Maher’s also a social media star, with 8.2 million followers across her social media, which means she is the most followed rugby player in the world. She has posed for the popular magazine Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue and even was runner-up in the show Dancing with the Stars.

Maher’s got a motto she lives by: “Beast, beauty, brains.” She also plays her role in emphasizing the positives of women’s physique and increasing the involvement of women in sports. That’s why she is so happy to be a model of rugby—a sport that often is not even considered to be for women—she is breaking barriers every day. But in doing so, people even criticized her. Just when she won the Olympics, one of her fans tweeted a nasty comment about her BMI, saying, “I bet that person has a 30% BMI.”

Ilona Maher didn’t let that slide; she clapped back, saying, “I think you were trying to roast me, but this actually is a fact. I do have a BMI of 30—well, 29.3 to be more exact.” Maher went on to share, “As long as haters keep saying dumb stuff, I’m gonna keep clapping back.”

Maher is 5’10” and 200 pounds and has been overweight her entire life; however, Maher refuses to let a number on her. At 5’10” and 200 pounds, Maher’s been labeled overweight her whole life, but she’s not letting a number define her. Maher’s journey to self-love has been a process. In fact, she once said she used to hide her broad shoulders using long hair since she wished to be a feminine lady. Yet, she has gradually accepted such issues. Now, Ilona Maher is all about being positive and telling people of the world that beauty lies in confidence.