Soccer fans have been surprised this week to learn that the captain of the New York Red Bulls, Sean Davis, has a TikTok celebrity for a mom.
Many folks have been following Lynja on TikTok for quite some time now; the instantly lovable grandmotherly-style figure has been producing quirky cooking videos since June of 2020.
From her account at @cookingwithlynja, she has amassed a whopping 4.4 million followers, and each video receives tens of thousands of likes. As well as being educational, her videos are really witty and lots of fun, with Lynja displaying bags of energy and enthusiasm.
In her videos, Lynja occasionally wears a New York Red Bulls T-shirt, but it was only this week that most fans made the connection to her son, midfielder and captain Sean Davis.
In Lynja’s latest video, she announced that she had bad news and good news. She said that back in 2019, she had been diagnosed with throat cancer. The always upbeat Lynja joked: “That’s why I think I sound like [cartoon characters] Marge, Mabel, and Toad.”
She also said she’d received another cancer treatment this year, but thankfully, the good news was that she’d completed the treatment. As a nice/fun gesture, she decided to celebrate by baking cookies for all the health workers that helped her combat the disease.
And there was a guest star in the video to help her out, her son, professional soccer player Sean Davis.
The official Twitter account of the New York Red Bulls spread the word by posting the video. And many fans were pleasantly surprised to learn the identity of cooking maestro Lynja.
The Red Bulls wrote: “Did you know Sean Davis’ mom is TikTok famous? And now, Sean is getting in on the fun for a great cause: baking cookies for healthcare workers!”
Fans love Sean Davis’s mom on TikTok
Many fans responded by stating how wonderful they think Lynja is in the videos. One fan wrote: “She is wonderful and Sean is wonderful and this is precious.”
Many fans admitted that they had been following Lynja for some time and hadn’t realized she was related to Sean Davis. One fan wrote: “I’ve been following Sean’s mom this entire time and didn’t know…wow.”
And another fan wrote: “I have been following Sean Davis‘ mom on TikTok forever and I didn’t even know until now.”
Sean Davis paid tribute to mom on Instagram
Those who had been paying closer attention to Sean’s Instagram feed might have noticed his touching Mother’s Day tribute to Lynja last year, where he wrote about her cancer diagnosis, but also praised his mom for always being upbeat and never complaining. He wrote: “Mom, you’re the real MVP!”
Davis recently discussed his Japanese heritage on his mother’s side in relation to the #StopAsianHate campaign, which he takes very personally. The campaign was started after a surge in hate crimes against people of Asian origin.
In other news this morning, Portuguese singer Kevin Nascimento, aka Mc Kevin, has been killed following a fall from the balcony of a hotel room in Rio de Janeiro over the weekend.
And in England, royal aides have reportedly signaled that they would like to see Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stripped of their royal titles.