New year, new start! People all across the world are making resolutions, changing daily habits and embarking on ‘personal rebrands’ – and celebrities are no different.
The influencer Molly-Mae Hague is undergoing a full strategic reinvention – and not all her fans seem to like it.
Having started off as a hyper-relatable Love Island participant in 2019 at the age of 20, the celebrity entrepreneur and influencer has enjoyed a stratospheric rise.
But recently the mother of one, 26, has been trying to discard the down-to-earth persona that her fans so loved – and become a high-end fashion maven far beyond the realm of her followers.
Indeed, now she wants to be taken seriously – and some insiders even say she is seeking to emulate A-list celebrities like Victoria Beckham to achieve that goal.
The first clue was a new bob, with the influencer now sporting a chic platinum hairstyle that means business.
Molly has also had her filler removed and even spoken about how ‘blessed’ she feels that she was able to ‘fix’ the excessive amount of cosmetic procedures she had to her face. (These included lip, jaw and cheek filler over the years.)
Her social media posts have been notably less flashy and her fashion more ‘quiet luxury’. So farewell to the high street brands like PrettyLittleThing and Zara that she previously sported – and hello to the Chanel handbags she’s been pictured clutching on social media.
Molly-Mae was a contestant on Season Five of Love Island and proved to be a fan favourite
More than six years later, the influencer has more of a taste for luxury – here she is pictured with a Chanel handbag
The same trend is visible, not just in her fashion choices, but in how she positions herself publicly.
Molly is now placing herself in ‘classic’ spaces – take her appearance on the runway at the L’Oreal Paris fashion show in September last year, or the interview and photoshoot in British Vogue in November 2024.
And I can reveal it’s all part of a plan to rid herself of the ‘influencer’ tag.
‘She doesn’t want to be seen as an influencer or ex-Love Islander anymore,’ a source tells me.
‘The brand deals she says yes to are very tactical. She will have everyone and anyone throwing themselves and money at her, but not many get the yes.’
But scroll back only slightly further on her social media posts and the contrast is stark. Not that long ago, Molly-Mae’s Instagram feed was dotted with fast-fashion ads, discount codes and collaborations.
When Molly entered the Love Island villa, she boasted only a few thousand followers.
The public quickly fell in love with her during the 2019 series, and despite not winning, she became one of the most successful contestants the show has ever produced, alongside the partner she met on the show, Tommy Fury.
The pair became one of Love Island’s most beloved couples, capturing the hearts of younger viewers who then grew up alongside them. By documenting their relationship so publicly, they allowed fans to feel emotionally invested in their trajectory.
When Molly-Mae first left the villa, she had copious brand deals but the biggest by far was a £500,000 collaboration with PrettyLittleThing, becoming the face of the fast fashion company.
Since then, Molly has grown her following to more than eight million on Instagram and built an estimated £6million fortune.
She owns a £5million Cheshire mansion with her now on-off partner Tommy, brother of boxer Tyson Fury.
Molly-Mae took to the catwalk at the L’Oreal Paris fashion show in September 2025
She dresses smartly for the trailer for the final instalment of her documentary, Molly-Mae: Behind It All
Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae are pictured with their two-year-old daughter Bambi
The family enjoyed a pricy trip to the Maldives in December
Increasingly, her partnerships are changing from those she had in her early days – like the major brand deal she has secured with beauty company Elemis and a reported seven-figure contract with Persil and Comfort.
Molly also quietly stepped away from her long-standing relationship with Starbucks after the brand faced growing backlash from Gen Z over its perceived funding and support of Israel.
It’s all part of an attempt to change the public perception of her, according to insiders.
And Victoria Beckham is a role model.
Like Posh, Molly-Mae faced early scepticism – once dismissed as ‘just a Love Island influencer’, much as the former pop singer was written off as ‘just a Spice Girl’.
In 2023, when Molly-Mae stepped down from her role as Creative Director at PrettyLittleThing, the aesthetic shift was immediate. Wide-leg trousers, oversized blazers, muted colour palettes and sharp tailoring replaced trend-led influencer staples.
It was, to some observers, unmistakably Posh-coded.
And the parallels don’t stop at clothing. Like Lady Beckham before her, Molly-Mae appears to be building something broader than a single brand. Where the ex-Spice Girl expanded from high-fashion into the highly lucrative Victoria Beckham Beauty, Molly has grown from her original beauty venture, Filter by Molly-Mae – launched in 2019 – into a wider clothing and lifestyle empire.
Beyond business, the similarities extend into their media strategies.
Molly now favours rare interviews, controlled messaging and highly polished visuals rather than chasing ‘accessible’ likes.
The two women also use documentary storytelling to frame their narratives on their own terms: their respective fly-on-the-wall Prime series Molly-Mae: Behind It All and Netflix’s Victoria Beckham were both released in 2025.
Left, Victoria Beckham tells all in her namesake documentary that was released on Netflix in October. Right, Molly adopts a similar aesthetic in her style choices in Molly-Mae: Behind It All, first released last January
Molly and Bambi pose at a resort in the Maldives – not very relatable for the average fan
Even their images align: ambitious, working mothers operating firmly within the lap of luxury.
Molly-Mae’s recent Instagram posts display careful ‘stealth wealth’ straight out of the VB playbook.
There are no obvious brand tags, but in December she posted herself carrying a £3,000 Bottega bag, wearing a dress from her own collection, and tagging the Maldives resort she was staying in.
Another image from the holiday shows her seated on a private jet in a smart blazer and trousers, tagging Kim Kardashian’s Skims alongside her own brand, Maebe. It looks effortless, but it’s also highly strategic. Some suggest Molly-Mae may also be trying to emulate and flatter Kim, too.
But this luxury lifestyle is increasing her distance from the audience who originally embraced her as ‘one of us’.
After all, it’s difficult to sell relatability when, as one critic bluntly put it: ‘I’m sorry, but she’s staying in an £8k-a-night villa in the Maldives… that isn’t relatable.’
Certainly some parts of her original audience have begun to feel left behind.
Once praised for her down-to-earth lifestyle, fans now question whether driving her Bentley, carrying designer handbags and holidaying in some of the world’s most exclusive resorts mean she’s just another celebrity.
‘I used to follow her because she felt normal but now it’s just constant luxury,’ one fan wrote.
This week, the release of a new trailer for the second part of season two of her documentary Behind It All has only intensified scrutiny around her transformation.
Even the description confirms the rebrand. ‘The wait is almost over. Step back into her world of unfiltered moments and new beginnings.’
Depending on who you ask, it’s either Molly-Mae’s most authentic era yet, or a perfectly timed pivot. Perhaps, some suggest, she fears her influencer star is on the wane as other younger challengers vie for her crown.
But the real question isn’t whether the influencer’s rebrand is authentic.
It’s whether the audience that grew up with Molly-Mae is willing to follow her where she’s going next.
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