Ester Expósito, in Kylian Mbappé’s France No. 10 shirt with the captain’s armband on her left arm, went up on Mbappé’s own Instagram Story on 19 July during the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina.

The France captain pulled the picture within minutes. It had already been screenshotted, posted to X and TikTok, and by evening it was inescapable.

Expósito is Spanish. That is the part that made the whole thing land.

Screenshots outran the delete button

TikTok clips had already placed the two of them together earlier in the day, on a boat in Miami watching the final with friends and eating together during the match.

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When Spain won, Expósito posted a FaceTime clip from her own Instagram Story of friends celebrating in the street, captioned with a single heart emoji and no words.

The hotel-room photo went up shortly after. Le Tribunal du Net, one of the French entertainment outlets that documented the incident, described Mbappé as “clearly aware of the effect the picture would have” before he removed it.

Paris Match had the yacht video by Wednesday

Any doubt about what people were looking at was cleared by video Paris Match published from a Miami yacht, the two of them sitting arm in arm in front of the camera rather than trying to duck it.

Neither has said anything publicly about a relationship. They have not needed to.

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Dating speculation goes back to March 2026, when Expósito appeared at a Real Madrid game; sightings in Paris, Sardinia and Ibiza followed through the spring.

The France side of the summer had ended the day before, with defeat to England in the third-place playoff. Sunday’s disappearing hotel photo, and the yacht footage that followed, were the only France-shirt images anyone was still looking at.

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