Tim Payne's partner Michelle Peters says the past two weeks have still been "overwhelming" and "wild" for the family following the All White defender's meteoric rise to internet stardom.
With Latin American roots, Peters revealed to 1News that she was the one to explain to Payne what was going on during a video call with their one-year-old.
"We were just chatting and he was like, 'I'm just getting lots of random follows'... and then he's like, 'what is this video? Can you translate it to me?'"
Kiwi-born Michelle moved to Costa Rica at the age of 10, and was fluent in Spanish.
Michelle Peters said the past few weeks had been overwhelming, and heartwarming following her partner’s newfound social media stardom. (Source: 1News)
"I think the fact that I'm from Latin America, I can kind of understand where the whole buzz and like the emotion of it all is," she said.
She said what happened in the following days was "wild".
In two weeks, Tim Payne's Instagram followers rose from just under 5000 to more than 5.7 million thanks to Argentine content creator El Scarso who identified Payne as the 'least-known' World Cup player and urged football fans to support him.
"It was a bit overwhelming, but the support has just been so positive. All of this has been so positive in so many ways. You know, for New Zealand football, for Tim's career, for us as a family," Michelle said.
"And just seeing everyone cheer on Tim has been, like, from me, from my perspective, as his partner's just been really nice, just seeing so many people give the person that you love support."
Payne's fame meant he had gone from football player to global brand with requests for brand partnerships and media appearances flooding in.
Peters said the NZ Professional Footballers' Association has been helping the family and have assisted in assembling a small team to help with all the extra requests.
It also means there will be plenty of decisions to come for this young family in the future, but for now there's a World Cup to focus on.
"Tim is actually really not phased too much about the whole social media," said Peters. "He's fully focused on football."
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