Emma Willman’s Haaland sister buzz turned a french braid tutorial into a cross-audience viral post in early June, pulling in more than 1.3 million likes and 181,000 comments. The South Carolina-based hair and beauty creator said the comparison to Erling Haaland had circulated before, but this was the moment it broke out at scale.
Erling Haaland’s reply was short — “Hi👍🏻” — but it added more than 2.3 million likes to the conversation. For brands, that kind of engagement is the signal that a niche creator post has crossed into a wider sports-and-social feed.
Early June braid video
Early June is when Willman posted the french braid how-to that set off the comparison cycle, and she said the post went “insanely viral overnight.” She also said, “For as long as I’ve been on social media, a lot of people would make the comment here or there that I did resemble him, but it wasn’t to the point where I would say I really noticed,” before the World Cup-era attention pushed it into view.
Willman’s own framing is useful here: she did not start with a celebrity mimicry strategy, then got pulled into one. The braid tutorial became the hook, and the resemblance became the shareable angle that moved it beyond a beauty audience.
Adidas and Modelo USA
Adidas wrote, “There is nø way you two aren’t related,” under one of Willman’s videos, while Modelo USA told viewers to “check the family tree ASAP.” Those comments show how brand accounts leaned into the joke once the post had enough momentum to justify joining the thread.
Willman said, “It’s been so fun to see — especially to see all the fans in the comments. He’s definitely someone who has a lot of fun with what he does,” and added, “It’s been fun for me to play into it and get to know the fan base a little bit more, because that’s exactly what he would do.” That is the practical playbook of the moment: engage the audience, extend the loop, and keep the post alive long enough for another response cycle.
July 7 and Miami
July 7 brought another post, this time with Willman re-creating Haaland’s bun. “I’ll be so honest,” she said in the follow-up video, adding, “I also see the resemblance.” That moved the story from a one-off viral clip to a repeatable format, which is usually how these social moments stay in circulation.
July 11 is the date Willman said she would be headed to the England vs. Norway World Cup game in Miami, where she hoped to meet her twin. The live matchup gives the comparison a real-world endpoint, even if the most interesting part is still the same: Willman says she had heard the resemblance for years, but only after the braid video circulated amid the World Cup did the Haaland sister label become the thing everyone else noticed.
