Valkyrae

**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.

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.

## Early life
Rachell Marie Hofstetter was born on January 8, 1992 in Moses Lake, Washington. She was raised in Moses Lake for most of her life. She is of Filipino and German descent. She has three brothers and one younger sister. She said her mother is the reason she became interested in video games.

Hofstetter went to community college and worked a job at GameStop to support herself. She graduated with an associate degree in arts and science.

## Gaming career
### Early start
While working at GameStop, Hofstetter began playing video games live on Instagram. She later began uploading her gaming videos to YouTube. In May 2019, she was nominated for the Gaming award at the 11th Shorty Awards. In her first three months on YouTube, she had around 1,500 viewers on average. Her channel grew in late 2020 with an average viewership of about 100,000. This happened when she started to play *Among Us* and began playing with other streamers such as Disguised Toast, Sykkuno, Pokimane, PewDiePie, and Cr1TiKaL. Hofstetter became the fastest-growing female streamer of 2020 and passed Pokimane as the year's most-viewed female streamer. In March 2022, she was nominated for Best Variety Streamer at the 2022 Streamer Awards. Later in August 2023, she was nominated for Streamer of the Year and Variety Streamer at the 13th Streamy Awards. In May 2024, Hofstetter's began playing modded versions of *Grand Theft Auto V*. In December 2024, she was nominated for The Sapphire Award at the 4th Streamer Awards. She returned to Twitch on January 8, while celebrating her 10th streaming anniversary and her 33rd birthday. During her first week, she was the most-watched female streamer on Twitch.

#### 2025 stalking incident
On February 24, 2025, Hofstetter began a week-long live streaming marathon in Los Angeles with streamer Brittany "Cinna" Watts called *Sis-A-Thon*.

On March 2, the final night of the marathon, Hoffstetter, Watts, and their guest Emily Schunk, were stalked at the Santa Monica Pier. A man, who called himself as "Russell", had gotten close to the live streamers and asked Emiru for her phone number. The streamers ended the marathon early and called the police because of this. Later that day, Hofstetter and Watts went live to talk about what happened and to officially end the marathon.

## 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. She was also in music videos for "Build a Bitch" and "Inferno" by Bella Poarch. In March 2022, she voiced acted as Hannya Squad member for the English dub TV series of *Tribe Nine*. In 2023, she made a cameo appearance as herself in the action-comedy movie *The Family Plan*. In June 2024, she was in the music video for The Kid Laroi's "Girls" song.

From October 2024 to April 2025, she had a podcast called *Press Esc* with artist Alyssa "Alythuh" Dios as her co-host. In July 2025, Hofstetter was announced as the new co-host to *Wine About It* with QTCinderella.

### Charity work 
On April 6, 2021, Hofstetter took part in an *Among Us* charity livestream held by *The Tonight Show* host Jimmy Fallon.

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. In late November 2022, Hofstetter donated $15,000 to No Kid Hungry during Ludwig Ahgren's charity event. In December 2022, Hofstetter took part in "Thankmas", a charity livestream event hosted by YouTuber jacksepticeye, to raise money for World Central Kitchen.

Hofstetter donated $10,000 for the victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria on February 6, 2023.

### Business 
In September 2022, Hofstetter became an ambassador for the fitness clothing brand Gymshark. In September 2024, she founded the media company Hihi Studios for anime content. In June 2025, Hihi Studios announced their first project, a webtoon called *Bad Influence.*

#### 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. 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. She was later told that the research made by RFLCT supporting the products could not be released to the public.

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. Later in October, RFLCT stopped selling the product.

## Personal life 
Hofstetter lives in Los Angeles. From 2016 to 2021, she dated streamer Michael "Sonii" Sherman. She supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. During the final weeks of the 2024 election, Hofstetter hosted a Twitch livestream with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders to openly support Harris.

## Works 
### Movies 
### Television 
### Music videos
### Singles
## Awards and nominations 
## References
## Other websites
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