A 5ft 5in sports star is engaged to a stunning 6ft 2in athlete but people have been left asking ‘is this AI?’ after pictures of him and his girlfriend went viral
A ‘short king’ 5ft 5in sports star is engaged to a 6ft 2in athlete girlfriend but fans have been left questioning whether photos of the couple are fake.
Former University of Illinois star athletes Lucas Byrd and Ellie Holzman shared photos of a trip to Lake Como in northern Italy, sparking suggestions they had gone married. It appears for now they are just engaged, but the photos have gone viral after fans couldn’t get over the huge height difference between the couple.
Lucas, who stands at 5ft 5in, won an NCAA wrestling championship at 133 pounds in 2025. He met 6ft 2in Ellie, a former volleyball star for the Fighting Illini, at university and the two have taken social media by storm since; however, not everything that appears online at the time is true, or true to size.
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The couple set up a joint Instagram account last November, with their first post a snap of the two dressed up at a bougie event. They added the caption: “Hi everyone! We’re Lucas and Ellie! You may have seen us before on TikTok 🙂 or you may know Lucas if you’re a wrestling fan. We’re just here to share fun videos we love making. Please be kind, and enjoy.
“A little about us: we met in college at the University of Illinois. We’ve been together for over 4 years now. We’re currently in a long distance relationship – Lucas is still in school and wrestling at the University of Illinois, and Ellie is living and working in Philadelphia.”
They have celebrated each other’s milestones and achievements on the page, as well as the behind-the-scenes of their life away from sport, including posing in fancy hotels, taking a trip on a yacht on holiday and seeing the stunning sights of the Swiss Alps and lakes.
The two recently appeared to have wed in Italy and shared stunning pictures of Lucas in his dark grey suit and stripy socks adorably looking at Ellie in her flowing white dress.
They added the caption: “Dreamy day on the beautiful Lake Como for our engagement shoot”, and had plenty of fans congratulating them and swooning over their looks in the comments section.
Ellie later took to social media to hint that they haven’t tied the knot just yet. In response to a story proclaiming they had got married, she wrote: “Well this is news to us. Hey @lukebyrd106 I guess we got married! Where should we honeymoon?”
Whatever their marital status, some cheeky users behind X accounts took it upon themselves to alter the snaps, increasing the height difference between the pair and leaving fans asking: “Is it AI?”
While those edited pictures certainly are AI, there’s nothing fake about their love, which was clearly worth the graft that Lucas put in to convince Ellie to ignore the height and give him a chance.
The two previously appeared on the Big Ten Network podcast Beyond the Mat, where Ellie admitted she wasn’t convinced by the idea of dating Lucas until their bond became undeniable.
She said: “I tried to keep it as a hard friendship because I never really let myself see anything past that because I’m like ‘ugh, he’s shorter than me. I’m never gonna date him.
“I posted a video about us and I was like ‘there was a time where I was ignoring these rumours that my best friend was in love with me because I couldn’t get over the height difference.’
“But then once I got over it, it flourished into this kind of beautiful thing.”