It is said that behind every successful man there is a woman. But in the social media age, it appears that behind the camera of every in-demand female influencer is a dutiful man, crouching in back-breaking positions to get the perfect shot of his belle.
These are the hen-pecked other halves who seemingly spend half of their romantic getaways lying in the wet sand juggling a camera phone and halo light as their partners pout and pose on the beach at sunset.
But far from being an internet joke – they are known as ‘Instagram husbands’ – some of these long-suffering chaps are carving out a social media career in their own right.
As the ‘content creator’ economy has exploded, the role of an influencer’s partner has become critical to the commercial power of the women they support.
From ex-footballers and CEOs to stay-at-home creatives, meet the men operating behind the scenes of Instagram’s most influential women.
1. Jamie Hinchliffe: Mr Hinch
For years, Mrs Hinch’s fans have adored Jamie Hinchliffe as the quietly loyal ‘Jamie, bless ’im’, lurking off-camera. But few know that the man behind Britain’s leading queen of clean had his 15 minutes of fame long before she did.
Before becoming Instagram’s most reliable ‘husband’, Jamie was a chatty sales manager from Essex. When Sophie, 35, met him at a recruitment firm, she admitted she could barely focus during his training sessions.
Back in 2003, a pony-tailed Jamie had appeared on the reality TV series Fash FC. Aired on the now defunct Bravo channel, it followed ex-Premiership player John Fashanu trying to fashion a crew of amateurs (among them Jamie) into a winning Sunday league team.
Their love story reads like a rom-com: After they had been dating for a while, Jamie whisked Sophie off on a surprise helicopter ride, only for her to look down and see both of their families holding a giant banner reading: ‘Sophie Barker will you marry me?’. They then tied the knot in 2018 – the same year Sophie began her ‘clean-fluencer’ Instagram page.
Now, Jamie, 47, plays the ultimate behind-the-scenes husband: chauffeur, cameraman and stay-at-home dad to their three sons.
2. Korey Smith: The footballer eyeing an influencer glow-up
Hattie Smith (known to Instagram as mummy blogger ‘Hattiebourn’) has long featured her husband Korey in her posts, but he plays fifth fiddle behind her and their three kids.
As a footballer, he’s had a long career in the lower leagues and currently plays for fourth-tier Cambridge United. But as the 34-year-old looks to hang up his boots, word is that he is looking to pivot – and no, not into coaching.
Sources say Korey has quietly joined his wife’s PR agency in the hope of emulating her success as an influencer. Only, his brand will focus more on fashion than family. And his wife’s contacts, from working with the likes of Marks & Spencer and H&M, will no doubt be put to good use.
3. Amar Daved: The fashion photographer who became Grace Beverley’s power partner
A fashion mogul and workout guru with sunkissed locks and her own podcast, Grace Beverley has built an online empire creating the perfect Instagram aesthetic. So it makes sense that she fell for someone whose job is literally making things look beautiful.
Enter Amar Daved: the jet-setting fashion photographer who splits his life between London and New York and has shot megastars such as actresses Zendaya and Millie Bobby Brown, and lingerie model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Their romance began as an effortlessly chic long-distance flirtation. Both were either side of the Atlantic, but things took a difficult turn when Amar, now 38, developed sepsis during one of Grace’s work assignments.
She stayed to look after him. Since then, they’ve evolved into a full-on power couple. They got engaged in the South of France, returned there in August to marry in a glittering ceremony among the cypress trees and olive groves, and have now snapped up a £9million West London mansion.
4. Rasmus Johansson: From high-school boyfriend to Scandinavian CEO fiancé
If there were ever a man who accidentally became the blueprint for the Instagram Husband, it’s Rasmus Johansson. He and influencer-turned-fashion designer Matilda Djerf met as teenagers, 17 and 18, while in school.
Fast-forward a decade and he’s not just the hapless guy holding the camera for her, he’s co-running her fashion business. When Matilda’s ‘clean girl’ look began taking over Instagram, Rasmus stepped in as photographer, editor and ‘creative partner’ to transform the Djerf brand from pretty pictures into a global phenomenon.
Then, in 2019, the couple launched clothing website Djerf Avenue. Rasmus has always been the quieter half, but in a Forbes interview he revealed they weren’t rushing into having children because right now it’s ‘just the two of us working hard’. After getting engaged in July, the pair are expected to marry soon and cement their power couple status.
5. Aaron McFeely: The consultant husband
Food influencer Emily English, better known as Em the Nutritionist, might be the face of recipes and wellness, but her husband Aaron McFeely, 39, is quietly running his own game behind the scenes. The two met during lockdown in 2020, first as friends on their hourly walks, until they realised they’d fallen for each other.
Their engagement was peak modern romance, a pre-Christmas trip to Babington House (the Somerset branch of exclusive members’ club Soho House) followed by a private proposal in their suite – all filmed, of course.
They married in 2024 and now live in Fulham, south-west London. Emily, 30, has said their love grew ‘organically,’ and with Aaron’s brand expertise and Emily’s digital reach, they’re shaping up to be one of the influencer world’s most quietly strategic power pairs, wholesome on the outside, business-brained on the inside.
6. John Andrews: The age-gap husband at the heart of Lorna Luxe’s empire
Fashion queen Lorna Luxe’s husband John Andrews is something of an influencer-world greybeard. He is two decades older – 64 to her 43 – is fully involved in the business, and unbothered by the glamour of social media.
He left his lucrative job at HSBC to help Lorna build her brand, and together they’ve created one of the UK’s biggest luxury lifestyle platforms, LA-Space. While Lorna dazzles with outfits and beauty routines, John slides in as the supportive, camera-ready husband who appears often enough to fuel fan intrigue.
‘We don’t share a bathroom but we do share clothes,’ Lorna recently said of the man she met in a Brighton bar. ‘When you’re in your 20s,’ she said of that night, ‘someone in their 40s seems ancient. I just remember thinking, God he’s so old’.
But love bloomed and illness has seemingly only strengthened their bond. In 2023, John was diagnosed with adrenal cancer and, following chemotherapy, it returned last year having spread to his brain.
Lorna’s spoken candidly of his condition and praised supportive messages from followers as ‘exactly what I needed’. Long may he ‘pay the bills’, as she says, ‘but my business pays for our lifestyle’.
7. Ali Gordon: Countryside influencer Lydia Millen’s husband with actor ambitions
Ali Gordon, or Alistair Millen-Gordon, is one of the original influencer husbands who made the jump from ‘guy in the background’ to full-blown lifestyle brand.
Before he was flying around the world creating moody slow-motion videos of hotel suites, Ali was an electrician. Then Lydia Millen happened. In a 2017 blog post, he admitted the ‘posh-fluencer’ transformed his world by introducing him to digital marketing.
He went full-time with social media, amassed 150,000 YouTube subscribers, built a company (Ali Gordon LTD), and became one half of one of the internet’s most polished influencer couples.
Sources say Ali, now 36, has his eye on acting and that he prefers the term ‘content creator’ to influencer. He and Lydia, 37, married in 2017 and are often seen posting from their achingly perfect country house in the grounds of a Northamptonshire stately home.
8. Josh Miln: The model boyfriend who pulled Saffron Barker to Dubai
Wellness and fashion YouTuber Saffron Barker, 25, has had high-profile romances before, including rugby star Louis Rees-Zammit, but her relationship with model Josh Miln has been her boldest move yet. She even left her beloved ‘forever home’ in Brighton to relocate with him to Dubai earlier this year.
Josh, 24, is Scottish but grew up in the emirate. The pair met after Saffron slid into his social media messages and things escalated quickly. So quickly, in fact, that fans were convinced she’d be relocating to Los Angeles last year shortly after introducing Josh to her fans in a YouTube vlog.
Now, Josh seems to have realised that influencing might just be more profitable than modelling alone. Sources say he’s signed with PR agency Zodiac Global, the same group representing UK and Dubai talent, to help him secure brand deals.
And the glow-up is clear, he’s jumped from 16,000 Instagram followers in January to 27,000 and counting. But Saffron is nowhere to be seen on his Instagram grid. In building his own profile and collaborating with other influencers, perhaps Josh is positioning himself as more than ‘Saffron’s boyfriend’.
9. Max Darnton: Binky Felstead’s billion-ideas husband
Max Darnton, 37, might not be an influencer in the traditional sense, but he could easily be the most well-connected husband in the entire content-creator circuit. Married to former Made In Chelsea star Binky Felstead, 35, Max is the man who ‘collects businesses’.
He’s lived and worked everywhere – from London and New York to Hong Kong and Singapore – and now runs Fredriks, a head-hunting firm for blue-chip clients.
But that’s just one part of his portfolio. He’s also invested in a Danish property firm, a low-caffeine drinks company and a US padel outfit. Max went to London private school Latymer Upper then Leeds University, and it’s no surprise Binky – who has rebuilt her own brand post-MIC – has gravitated toward someone strategically minded.
On social media, Max stays low-key, polished and off-camera unless absolutely necessary. The couple now have sons Wolfie and Wilder, and Max is step-dad to Binky’s daughter India, whom she had with her MIC co-star Joshua Patterson.
10. Danny Rae: The army PT who’s turning himself into a fitness influencer
Molly Mae’s sister, 28-year-old Zoe Rae, formerly Zoe Hague, married Danny in July at the picturesque Inn On The Lake in Ullswater, Cumbria, but their love story started years earlier in the British Army.
Both served in the Medical Corp and there crossed paths at the gym where they were both personal trainers. After following each other on running app Strava, they eventually met at a pub with their friends.
Now Danny, 30, is on a full-blown influencer trajectory. He already has 81,000 followers, paid partnerships with MyProtein and Gymshark, and a YouTube channel showcasing his workouts in moody lighting.
In an emotional video, he recently announced that he’s preparing to leave the Army to focus on his social media career.
‘The Army has been my life, since I was a kid and for all of my adult life,’ he said. ‘I am now ready to tackle a new challenge in life. I now want to be a good husband and family man.’
He will go into business with Red On, a firm that coaches athletes, and continue to ‘inspire people’ online and ‘one day bring out a book or a podcast’.
He and Zoe just bought a new house complete with an at-home gym, and he is even now a regular on sister-in-law Molly Mae’s YouTube videos after the couple moved in with her for a few months in her Cheshire mansion.
11. Harry Agombar: The football manager husband the Lineker’s family
Gary Lineker’s fashion influencer niece Tia paints her husband Harry, 33, as the grounded, quietly ambitious family man behind her glossy luxury feeds.
As a footballer though, he hasn’t quite lived up to the family name, with spells in lower league clubs like Hereford United and Swindon. But he has gone into management – something Gary refused to do – and he is currently head coach of UAE Third Division side Arabian Falcons.
But it’s not been all football. In 2019, he branched into fashion with Tia, 27, when the pair launched a hat brand. Though it didn’t hit the glittering heights the family is used to and dissolved in January.
