Did Kylian Mbappé really DUMP his transgender girlfriend? The Full Story REVEALED

When Kylian Mbappé rejected Real Madrid for the second time in May 2022, it's safe to say that Spanish media ran out of words for betrayal. 

"I made my decision last week," that was exactly how Mbappe put it according to ESPN, after committing his future to Paris Saint Germain.

"I spoke to Florentino Perez. I have a lot of respect for him and for Real Madrid. They did everything to bring me there and make me happy, so I thank them for that."

At the time, the 26-year-old forward signed a mega-extension at Paris Saint-Germain, making him both the best-paid player in France and a lightning rod in Spain.

Mbappe spoke at a news conference alongside PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, where he also opened the door to a possible departure in 2025.

"Everybody knows I wanted to leave last year. But things are different now, in sporting terms and personally," Mbappe said.

 "Leaving my country wasn't the right thing. There's a sentimental aspect to this, and the sporting project has changed as well. ... We spoke for months about the sporting project, and we spoke about money for just a few minutes."

He added: "Something I've learnt in football is you should look ahead, but not too far ahead.”

Diario SPORT labelled him “the great traitor,” while La Liga president Javier Tebas accused PSG of “destroying football.”

Weeks later, another story began to spread way beyond the depths of the football pitch.

And what was that story? Kylian Mbappé was secretly 'dating' transgender model Inès Rau.

And in early 2023, multiple reports suggested the Les Blues star had called it quits with her shortly after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar - No concrete proof, no statements, no confirmed photographs. 

Yet within days, the narrative was everywhere: trending hashtags,think pieces on social media, and audacious memes that went viral on the internet.

Fast-forward to 2025, Mbappe has already established himself as the most important attacker for Real Madrid, after departing PSG in the summer of 2024 to finally complete the story and make his childhood dream a reality.

Nevertheless, an unverified narrative regarding his personal life has persistently influenced how he is viewed beyond the game.

In May 2022, Kylian Mbappé was photographed on a yacht looking relaxed with a mystery woman. 

Digital forensics show the spark came from paparazzi-style yacht photos taken off the Côte d’Azur during Cannes 2022. 

Mbappé was spotted in the company of some women on the yacht but one of them stood out.

Early Twitter captions casually paired the images with the name “Inès,” and within hours, gossip blogs filled in the blank with Inès Rau - a French-Algerian transgender model known globally for her history-making 2017 Playboy cover.

Those images quickly circulated, and multiple media outlets reported the mystery woman involved romantically with Mbappe was Ines Rau.

And a quick glance at the source material reveals the 'weak' basis for this claim.

The pap photos published by the Daily Mail, show a friendly interaction as Mbappé is seen sharing a conversation with the woman, before lifting her on the yacht.

There's no passionate kiss, no holding hands, just a moment of what could easily be a casual friendship. 

Mbappé, known for his intensely private life, offered no comment, nor did the model claimed to be in the photo - Ines Rau.

However, in the vacuum of information, the media created a narrative.

For context, this is the perfect equation for a viral lie: a high-profile or relatively private celebrity + a taboo subject (transgender identity in this context) + a single piece of ambiguous evidence. 

The result became a story with a high significance - both novel and controversial plus the so-called "evidence" was easily misinterpreted. 

According to rumour theory, this combination is a guaranteed recipe for widespread dissemination, as people fill the information gaps with their own assumptions and biases.

What is the rumour theory? "Rumor theory" is a framework in social psychology and sociology that explains how unverified information, or rumours, are created and spread.

Its core principles were largely established by psychologists Gordon Allport and Leo Postman in their 1947 book, The Psychology of Rumor.

However, by the time French gossip pages on social media clarified the woman in the yacht photos was not Ines Rau at all, the viral cycle was already complete.

Let’s be blunt. There is no verified evidence that Kylian Mbappé ever had, let alone broke up with, a transgender girlfriend neither is there any evidence to show a romantic involvement with Inès Rau. 

The relationship was never confirmed by either party and the entire narrative was built on a single, out-of-context photograph, and was amplified by a combination of public fascination, social media algorithms, and, seemingly, an 'orchestrated smear campaign' by some Spanish press following Mbappé's rejection of a move to Real Madrid. 

The notion that Mbappé "dumped" her is an extension of this unverified story.

And while several media reports and fan speculation mentioned that they were following each other and that Mbappé may have later unfollowed Rau, this information was never directly confirmed.

Instead, French gossip outlets on Instagram, correctly identified the lady in the viral photos with Mbappe to be one of his friends, who also bears the same name Ines.

As mentioned earlier, Mbappe was not isolated on the yacht with just one woman.

Social media sleuths spotted that Mbappe was joined by well-known French actress 'Adèle Exarchopoulos', another French actress named 'Leila Boumedjane', and a third lady simply known as 'Ines'.

Ines’ Instagram, a private account, was also identified with the user “@ineschk___”.

At the time, fans also noticed that the real Ines was followed by Kylian Mbappe’s verified Instagram with more than 124 million followers currently.

However, after her handle was leaked, she was forced to switch her user no less than three times, before finally quitting the platform in a bid to escape the barrage of follower requests, seeing as she was at risk of media spotlight.

Meanwhile, the transgender model Ines Rau, mistaken for the real Ines, is claimed to have been in a relationship with Staiv Gentis, a French model, actor and stuntman since 2015, according to her IMDb bio.

However, it is still unclear if the pair are still together - though they still follow each other on Instagram.

In May 2022, the same month, the fake dating rumours with Mbappe went viral, Rau attended the amfAR Gala in Cannes, and reposted a photo of herself kissing French fashion designer and entrepreneur Alexandre Mattiussi.

She tagged the designer and captioned the post on her Ig stories “was indeed one of my hot dates last night,” sparking dating rumours with the AMI founder.

However in January 2024, she seemingly went public with her new relationship - posting a photo of herself locking lips with a mystery man on her verified Instagram page.

While the story was a global phenomenon, its intensity was arguably most pronounced in Spain. And this is where the deeper story of manipulation and agenda-setting begins.

Just a week before the photos emerged, Mbappé had delivered a devastating blow to Real Madrid and its powerful Spanish media allies.

After years of relentless courting, the club's president, Florentino 'Don' Pérez, was confident he had secured the French superstar's signature. 

But in a dramatic turn of events, Mbappé publicly announced he was staying at PSG, signing a new mega-contract, that made him the highest-paid player in Europe at the time.

This was seen as a profound betrayal. The Spanish media, particularly outlets with strong ties to Real Madrid, were left humiliated.

But...one would say, the retaliation appeared to be swift and savage. 

Spanish outlets like Marca and AS, which had previously hailed Mbappé as a future Real Madrid legend, launched a coordinated campaign to discredit Mbappe after rejecting Madrid.

One prominent headline from Spanish newspaper Marca on May 22, 2022 read: "It takes a lot of class to play in Madrid." 

This article reported by Daily Mail suggested that Mbappé lacked the "class" required to play for Real Madrid, implying his decision was driven by financial motives rather than ambition or loyalty to the club's "legendary" status. 

Daily Mail also front page of AS featured the headline: "He's missing out."

The article continued to suggest that Mbappé's choice was a loss for him, implying he prioritized PSG's money over the opportunity to become a legend at Real Madrid.

Per Daily Mail, an excerpt from the article read: 'Mbappe prefers PSG's money to Madrid's legend.'

Mbappé’s very public decision in May 2022 to stay at PSG rather than join Real Madrid, was an act that provoked angry headlines and official statements in Spain.

ESPN reported that LaLiga lodged formal complaints and its leadership publicly criticised the deal.

The Guardian also reported the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) accused Spain’s La Liga of “disrespectful smears” and “manifestly false” statements, as the war of words over Kylian Mbappé’s decision to reject a move to Real Madrid in favour of a world-record contract renewal at PSG escalated.

For Madrid-centric outlets still reeling from Mbappé’s second Real Madrid snub, amplifying salacious personal-life rumours wasn’t just traffic bait, it was an attempt to sway the narrative to seemingly discredit the French superstar - one that proved successful at the time.

What followed in the coming weeks/months, was a barrage of articles about 'Mbappe's transgender girlfriend', or so they thought...or perhaps, wanted it to be.

Several Spanish media outlets including Marca, Defensa Central, Planeta Real Madrid, La Razón, published articles suggesting Mbappe's heart had been stolen by transgender model Ines Rau.

In fact, during the Qatar World Cup later that year, Spanish publication El Nacional stated it conclusively in their headline: "This is Kylian Mbappé's girlfriend, Inés Rau: Parisian, trans, and gorgeous."

The following year, Diario SPORT opted for a little more dramatic headline with: "Who is Inés Rau? The trans model who conquered Kylian Mbappé."

And SPORT concluded that article with, "Inés is a benchmark for the LGTBI+ community, especially in the world of fashion and can go a step further in terms of equality and inclusion by maintaining a relationship with one of the most important footballers of the moment," highlighting in bold the text from ‘maintaining’ onwards.

Spanish outlets were quick to point fingers at ‘French and Italian media’ for sparking the dating rumours. But not one of them could back it up.

And the truth? The likes of L’Équipe, Le Parisien and RMC Sport never touched the story.

As for the Italian press, multiple reports pointed to Corriere della Sera, which on 30 August 2022, published a piece headlined: "Mbappé’s new girlfriend is Ines Rau, a transgender model: in France, certain".

The irony was glaring because the outlet - even claimed ‘certainty’ from France, yet failed to provide a shred of evidence.

The report suggested the pair had been dating for months, a narrative that quickly unravelled once the so-called ‘public sighting’ was exposed as a case of mistaken identity.

Marca, who initially published on the dating rumours, were also of the earliest publications to report on the breakup, even suggesting without facts that Mbappe and Ines unfollowed each other on social media.

'He even stopped following Rau on Instagram, so that relationship is assumed to be completely over,' an excerpt from Marca's headline titled, "Mbappe splits from his trans girlfriend and starts dating the ex of a PSG player."

In the end, the story gained far more traction in Spain than anywhere else, and it's fair to say the Spanish media amplified the claims well beyond what had originally been published in Italy.

To be clear, there is no smoking-gun to prove an orchestrated “Spanish media campaign” that invented the Mbappe transgender girlfriend-narrative. 

What is verifiable is the volume and tone of Spanish reaction to Mbappé’s 2022 decision, which unquestionably made him a more polarising figure there, and one can only guess what polarisation does to rumours.

The Inès Rau rumours, whether true or not, was irrelevant to the Spanish media, because it became a tool in this campaign. 

It was a perfect piece of clickbait to further tarnish Mbappé's image and frame him as a controversial figure, in a bid to perhaps, punish him for rejecting Real Madrid.

One might wonder, why does this particular rumour still persist to this day when there's no substance to the story? 

The biggest answer lies in the way social platforms reward novelty and moral emotion.

Research has repeatedly shown that falsehood sensationalism travel faster than corrections because they trigger curiosity and outrage - and these are two powerful drivers of engagement.

I mean look at it: a story that mixes a top-tier athlete, a transgender public figure and the spectre of scandal is tailor-made for shares, comments and outraged replies. 

That engagement keeps the story alive, long after the facts have been checked. 

Additionally, as a globally famous athlete, Mbappé's private life will always be a major subject of public interest. 

The dating rumour also involved Ines Rau, a prominent figure in the transgender community, which made the story particularly unique and compelling to tabloids and social media. 

In this case, it's fair to say transphobia and celebrity obsession sort of.... intersected.

The idea of Mbappé dating Rau was not just juicy gossip, but also a narrative that many readers and creators found too scandalous to ignore - as has often been the case, when the Les Blues skipper gets trolled and even ridiculed by ignorant critics over his perceived sexuality.

The lack of official confirmation from either party allowed for continuous speculation, which fuelled the conversation across various platforms and media news outlets.

Like most viral hoaxes, the Mbappé-Rau story eventually faded from the headlines, replaced by new celebrity gossip. 

While neither Mbappé nor Rau ever officially addressed the rumours, subsequent events suggest the story was a fleeting moment of manufactured scandal. 

Mbappé later stated in an interview that he was single, which was widely interpreted as an end to a relationship that never truly existed. 

The Los Blancos star has been linked with several women in the past including Stephanie Rose Bertram, Emma Smet, Georgia May Heath, Alicia Ayles, Dani Grace Almeida, amongst others.

More recently, fans have linked the French star has been to Suicide Squad actress Daniela Melchior.

However, it remains a rumour as nothing has been confirmed yet, as Mbappe continues to maintain a high level of privacy when it comes to his personal life and relationships.

Meanwhile, Inès Rau has continued to thrive as a model and activist, largely unburdened by the fleeting rumour that briefly made her a household name.

So, did Kylian Mbappe REALLY date Ines Rau? The simple answer is NO!

Ultimately, the story of Kylian Mbappé and the transgender model Inès Rau wasn't about a breakup, because there was no relationship or romance to begin with.

It was a case study in how a handful of photos, a powerful media machine with an axe to grind, and the public's insatiable appetite for gossip can create a fabricated reality. 

The narrative of Mbappé "dumping" his transgender girlfriend was never a factual account, it was a ghost story, built on a foundation of lies and amplified by the very systems that govern our attention.