Valkyrae
American video game streamer (b. 1992) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Rachell Marie Hofstetter (born January 8, 1992), better known as Valkyrae, is an American online streamer, YouTuber, and podcaster. She is a co-owner of the gaming organization 100 Thieves and founder and CEO of the media company Hihi Studios.
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Hofstetter began streaming on Twitch in 2015. She became popular when she started playing Fortnite in 2018 and joined 100 Thieves as their first female content creator. In 2020, she began streaming on YouTube. Later that year, she became even more popular when she began playing Among Us. For this, she won the Game Award for "Content Creator of the Year" and the Streamy Award for best live streamer. Hofstetter also does charity livestreams. Some of the organizations she streamed for and donated to include Feeding America, The Trevor Project, No Kid Hungry and the World Central Kitchen. She returned to Twitch in 2025.
Aside from her gaming career, Hofstetter has hosted two podcasts called Press Esc and Wine About It and has been the brand ambassador for Gymshark. For a short time, she planned on releasing her own skincare brand called RFLCT, but the brand closed within a month because of controversy about their research.
Hofstetter was also named "Gaming Creator of the Year" by Adweek in 2021. She was included on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2022.
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Early life
Rachell Marie Hofstetter was born on January 8, 1992 in Moses Lake, Washington.[1][2][3] She was raised in Moses Lake for most of her life.[4] She is of Filipino and German descent.[5] She has three brothers and one younger sister.[6] She said her mother is the reason she became interested in video games.[7] Her mother had Hofstetter play video games as a hobby from a young age.[7]
Hofstetter went to community college and worked a job at GameStop to support herself.[8] She graduated with an associate degree in arts and science.[9]
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Gaming career
Early start
While working at GameStop, Hofstetter began playing video games live on Instagram.[8] After becoming more popular, she started live streaming on Twitch in 2015.[8][10] She later began uploading her gaming videos to YouTube.[10] She became well known when she started playing Fortnite in 2018.[10] That same year, she became the first female content creator for the gaming organization 100 Thieves.[11][12] In May 2019, she was nominated for the Gaming award at the 11th Shorty Awards.[13]
YouTube videos and Among Us
On January 13, 2020, Hofstetter left Twitch for YouTube after signing a contract with them.[14] In her first three months on YouTube, she had around 1,500 viewers on average.[15] Her channel grew in late 2020 with an average viewership of about 100,000.[16] This happened when she started to play Among Us and began playing with other streamers such as Disguised Toast, Sykkuno, Pokimane, PewDiePie, and Cr1TiKaL.[16] She also played with U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, musician Lil Nas X, and television personality Jimmy Fallon.[8][17] Hofstetter became the fastest-growing female streamer of 2020 and passed Pokimane as the year's most-viewed female streamer.[16] In December 2020, she won Content Creator of the Year award at the 2020 Game Awards.[18]
On April 7, 2021, Hofstetter and CouRageJD joined 100 Thieves as co-owners with Dan Gilbert, Scooter Braun, Drake, and its founder, Nadeshot.[8] In May 2021, she won Gaming Creator of the Year award at the 2021 Adweek Creator Visionary Awards.[19] In December 2021, she won the Livestreamer award at the 11th Streamy Awards.[20]
In 2022, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the games category.[21] In March 2022, she was nominated for Best Variety Streamer at the 2022 Streamer Awards.[22] In December 2022, she was nominated for Streamer of the Year and Variety Streamer at the 12th Streamy Awards.[23] On March 11, 2023, she co-hosted the 2nd Streamer Awards with QTCinderella.[24] The ceremony had about 425,000 live viewers.[24][25][26] Later in August 2023, she was nominated for Streamer of the Year and Variety Streamer at the 13th Streamy Awards.[27]
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In February 2024, she won The Sapphire Award at the 3rd Streamer Awards.[28] In May 2024, Hofstetter's began playing modded versions of Grand Theft Auto V.[1] In July 2024, she took part in the MrBeast video "50 YouTubers Fight for $1,000,000".[29] In December 2024, she was nominated for The Sapphire Award at the 4th Streamer Awards.[30]
Return to Twitch
By January 2025, Hofstetter's contract with YouTube had ended.[31] She returned to Twitch on January 8, while celebrating her 10th streaming anniversary and her 33rd birthday.[32] During her first week, she was the most-watched female streamer on Twitch.[33][34]
2025 stalking incident
On February 24, 2025, Hofstetter began a week-long live streaming marathon in Los Angeles with streamers Brittany "Cinna" Watts called Sis-A-Thon.[35] Hoffstetter and Watts had planned on holding the marathon in January, but they changed the date because of the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.[35]
On March 2, the final night of the marathon, Hoffstetter, Watts, and their guest Emily Schunk, were stalked at the Santa Monica Pier.[36][37] A man, who called himself as "Russell", had gotten close to the live streamers and asked Emiru for her phone number.[36] After taking a picture with her, the man would change clothes and go up to the women again over a half hour later, asking Emiru for her number after they got off the Ferris wheel. The man became angrier after they told him no again and threatened to kill the streamers.[36][38] The streamers ended the marathon early and called the police because of this.[36]
Hofstetter tweeting the next morning: "We are all ok and have been with police. We decided we are done with the marathon and need time to process! Thank you for all the love and support this past week, we had so much fun and hope you all enjoyed. That end of marathon brunch stream we had planned tomorrow with friends will be rescheduled for sometime in the far future :') Please send love to emiru, Cinna, Rosie [sic] and Emily! Everybody is in shock but I'm so glad were [sic] together".[36][39] Later that day, Hofstetter and Watts went live to talk about what happened and to officially end the marathon.[40]
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Other activities
Acting and podcasting
Hofstetter has been in some music videos. In 2021, she was in the "DayWalker" music video by Machine Gun Kelly and Corpse Husband.[41] She was also in music videos for "Build a Bitch" and "Inferno" by Bella Poarch.[42][43] In March 2022, she voiced acted as Hannya Squad member for the English dub TV series of Tribe Nine.[44] In December 2022, she voiced Squad Commander Red in the animated TV series Sonic Prime.[45] In 2023, she made a cameo appearance as herself in the action-comedy movie The Family Plan.[46] In June 2024, she was in the music video for The Kid Laroi's "Girls" song.[47]
In January 2025, she voiced the lead character, "Ratchet", in the animated movie Goldbeak.[48] In April 2025, it was revealed that Hofstetter had filmed a 30-second cameo for A Minecraft Movie, but the scene was cut; in the final release, she only appears in the background of a shot.[49][50]
From October 2024 to April 2025, she had a podcast called Press Esc with artist Alyssa "Alythuh" Dios as her co-host.[51][52][53] In July 2025, Hofstetter was announced as the new co-host to Wine About It with QTCinderella.[54][55]
Charity work
On April 6, 2021, Hofstetter took part in an Among Us charity livestream held by The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon.[56] She played with Stranger Things actors Gaten Matarazzo and Noah Schnapp, American hip-hop band The Roots members Questlove, Black Thought, and Captain Kirk Douglas, and YouTubers Sykkuno and Corpse Husband.[56] The event raised over $25,000 for Feeding America.[56]
In June 2022, Hofstetter took part in a Minecraft charity event to raise money for The Trevor Project. Hofstetter also donated $10,000 towards the charity.[57] In late November 2022, Hofstetter donated $15,000 to No Kid Hungry during Ludwig Ahgren's charity event.[58][59] In December 2022, Hofstetter took part in "Thankmas", a charity livestream event hosted by YouTuber jacksepticeye, to raise money for World Central Kitchen.[60]
Hofstetter donated $10,000 for the victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria on February 6, 2023.[61]
Business
In September 2022, Hofstetter became an ambassador for the fitness clothing brand Gymshark.[62] In September 2024, she founded the media company Hihi Studios for anime content.[63] In June 2025, Hihi Studios announced their first project, a webtoon called Bad Influence.[64]
RFLCT controversy
In October 2021, Hofstetter announced that she would be creating her own skincare brand, RFLCT. The brand said that gamers could get skin damage caused by exposure to blue light and that their products protect against it.[65] Many critics said that RFLCT were unable to support this with evidence.[65][66][67] Hofstetter responded by saying that "all of the hate, doubt, concerns, and criticisms are all [fair] and valid" and that she was "very upset and confused" that there was not much information on its website.[67][68] She was later told that the research made by RFLCT supporting the products could not be released to the public.[69]
After RFLCT said they were unable to show their evidence, Hofstetter said she wanted to leave them, but was unable to because she signed a contract with them.[70] Later in October, RFLCT stopped selling the product.[71][72]
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Personal life
Hofstetter lives in Los Angeles.[73] From 2016 to 2021, she dated streamer Michael "Sonii" Sherman.[26] From April 2023 to July 2024, she lived with streamers Leslie "Fuslie" Fu, Miyoung "Kkatamina" Kim, and Christina "TinaKitten" Kenyon".[73]
During the 2020 presidential election, Hofstetter was part of a livestream hosted by U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.[74] She supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.[75] During the final weeks of the 2024 election, Hofstetter hosted a Twitch livestream with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders to openly support Harris.[76]
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Works
Movies
Television
Music videos
Singles
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Awards and nominations
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References
Other websites
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