Ilona Maher is again giving the internet some feel-good content.
Over the weekend, the rugby star took the field hand in hand with a young fan.
Both Maher, 28, and the fan donned their favorite lip color, and the imagery of the poignant moment took people by surprise.
“Absolutely stunning,” one fan wrote. “Ilona keeps helping me heal inner child stuff I didn’t even know I was holding on to. Kindness and compassion are so important.”
“THE MATCHING MAKEUP I CANT,” another commenter said. “A picture is worth a gazillion words. The way that kid looked up and was like ‘yup. Someone just like me.’ Representation really matters.”
Maher also admitted she saw herself in the young fan.
“She is literally my twin,” Maher wrote. “Like looking in a mirror of my past.”
“Ilona is healing all our inner girls,” read another comment. “Love this so much.”
At the end of another video, the young fan can be seen saying, “That was amazing. Best thing I ever done in my life.”
“I cried as soon as I noticed the little girl wearing a red lip too,” another fan added. “It really hit me how big of a moment this was for that little girl, and probably for Ilona’s inner girl too.”
In August, Maher told The Cut that her go-to lip color is usually red because “I think it works for my coloring so well.”
“It’s not something I always did,” Maher said of wearing lipstick on the field, “but I’ve always loved lipstick, even from when I was a young girl.”
“So I thought about how cool it could be to wear while playing because everyone is always saying how masculine rugby is,” she added of the juxtaposition, “and that you have to be a certain way to play and I didn’t like that.”
“So I was like, ‘Why can’t I just wear it on the field too?’ and feel pretty on the field? It’s not like it’s gonna stop me from tackling hard. And it’s been a cool brand for me now,” she continued.
