6 days ago
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- Wales Online
Louis Rees-Zammit's new influencer girlfriend has a famous ex and sporting past
Louis Rees-Zammit's new influencer girlfriend has a famous ex and sporting past
The couple have been sharing pictures since February, with a new love blossoming.
Louis Rees-Zammit's girlfriend is a talented footballer.
(Image: drewknotts on Instagram )
Louis Rees-Zammit is back in America ahead of the new season, and is loved up with new girlfriend Drew Knotts.
The former Wales rugby star spent the off-season back in the United Kingdom with family and friends following his first full season in the NFL. A Jacksonville Jaguars player, Rees-Zammit was part of the 17-player practice squad as their designated International Player Pathway player, but did not get elevated to the main roster to play at any point during the 2024/2025 season. However, he's aiming to get his opportunity this year having re-signed with the franchise.
During the off-season, as well as spending time back in the UK, Rees-Zammit visited Thailand with his brother Taylor, and also went public on his relationship with Knotts.
The couple have shared photos and videos on holiday in the Dubai desert, taking part in sand-boarding and enjoying an evening meal. More recently they have been pictured at the Strawberry Ball in Plant City, Florida, as well as various other social events. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.
So, who is Drew Knotts?
She is 26-year-old social media influencer from Plant City, Florida - where Rees-Zammit plays his American football. She shot to fame online when it was revealed she was dating internet celebrity Tayler Holder.
In 2023 it was reported that she was working as a sales development representative for a consumer analytics company called Buxton, but since then, her Instagram following has doubled and it seems her attentions have now been drawn to creating social media content.
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Sporting background
Knotts is an accomplished footballer, and has been involved in sport since the age of four.
According to the Plant City Observer, she tried her hand at basketball, flag football, gymnastics, tennis, soccer, softball and swimming before settling on football, and always had a passion for running.
Despite being made fun of in school for "having a boy name", she grew a reputation for being incredibly speedy, and faster than most of the boys, too.
She played at a good level for a number of years as a young child and teen, trying out her hand with Plant City Lancers and Brandon Flames before being selected to play for Elite Clubs National League U14s (which is one of two in Florida).
She went on to play for Plant City High School, with whom she scored 10 goals - being the only non-senior player to pull this off.
Knotts succeeded further in High School, receiving the Swope Rodante Vanguard Student Athlete Award in December 2016 and winning player of the game six times.
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Due to injury, when she started at Georgia Southern University in 2017, she did not play any football. She transferred to Southern Mississippi University and played there before graduating in 2021 with a degree in Hospitality Administration and Management. This was the last time she played football competitively.
Her brother is also a sportsman, and plays American football for Texas Tech University.
Beauty career
Alongside her sporting exploits, Knotts has been involved in pageants from a young age.
She told the Plant City Observer as a 15-year-old that one thing she liked about the long dresses at pageant competitions was the length of them, and this was because it hid her bruises from playing football.
She played many of her football games alongside pageant shows, balancing two of her favourite hobbies. Eleven years ago she was crowned Junior Royalty Pageant in the same season she banged in 10 goals for her high school.
Competing in beauty certainly runs in the family, with grandmother Ruby Jean Redman being crowned Florida Strawberry Festival Queen in 1953, with cousin Chelsea Bowden picking up the same award in 2012.
"My grandmother has a hallway full of old pictures of my mom and her sisters from when they were growing up," Knotts told the Plant City Observer. "And her Strawberry Queen photos are on the wall. It's so cool because she was in the same pageant. Every time we see it, we ask her about it. She's been able to tell us all these stories from how it changed over time."
She suffered a serious knee injury playing football on her 18th birthday in 2016, which required surgery. It threatened the prospect of her competing in the upcoming pageant.
"Three weeks before the pageant I was on crutches," she explained. "I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to compete. But I set goals, we got into physical therapy and I worked really hard."
However, she fought back to full fitness and managed to compete and won the competition.
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While she does not take part in any similar competitions right now, she has a big presence on social media, with her style and following online having earned her brand deals and sponsorships, and she models clothes for various brands. For example, last year, she teamed up with Kickstand Cocktails for a collaborative Instagram post.
She has almost 30,000 followers on Instagram and regularly posts about her lifestyle and adventures. She has a TikTok account which has a large following but that has not been active lately.
Famous ex-boyfriend
Knotts shot to fame when it was revealed she was dating internet star Tayler Holder.
Their relationship became public in 2023, with Knotts appearing in multiple TikTok videos with Holder, who is also a musician. Holder gets over half a million listeners on Spotify per month, with his top two tracks having around 10 million listens.
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Holder's genre of music is country, which is of course hugely relevant in pop culture right now, and has picked up Male Artist of the Year and Artist of the Year from Up N Country.
He has almost 20 million TikTok followers and is therefore the most followed country music star on the app. He also has a stunning 1.2 billion likes in total on his videos.
Holder and Knotts announced their breakup in January 2024, meaning that she had been single for almost a year before linking up with Rees-Zammit.
