Ilona Maher Jokes ‘Stop Fighting Over Me’ After Breaking Nose

Rugby star Ilona Maher is laughing through the pain as she continues to recover from a broken nose sustained during her first home start with the Bristol Bears.

The Olympic bronze medalist, 28, was forced to leave the game early on Saturday, Jan. 18 after colliding with three players on the field at Ashton Gate, Essentially Sports reported. Maher showed off the injury on Instagram the following day, giving a thumbs up and smiling as her nose was packed with bloody cotton.

“Just a little knock,” she quipped, later revealing that she’d actually broken her nose during the match.

Once the swelling and bruising kicked in, Maher shared a video of her joking about how people will react “on the street to me today [probably].” She wrote, “I’m just assuming this is how today will go.”

“Guys, stop fighting over me. There’s enough to go around,” she said in the clip, bashfully tucking her hair behind her ears. “What? I am a model. Thank you so much. Oh, you’ve already fallen in love? It’ll pass. It’ll pass.”

Jokes aside, Maher is a model, having appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit‘s digital issue last August.

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In an earlier video, captioned, “when people keep asking me if I’m okay but I just broke my nose,” she used audio from her appearance on Dancing with the Stars when Carrie Ann Inaba asked how she was feeling after a tough performance.

Holding an ice pack to her swollen nose, Maher lip-synced “been better, Carrie Ann,” as she pointed her to cut and swollen nose. “No, sir, I am truly not okay,” she wrote in the caption.

A broken nose can take up to six weeks to heal, the Cleveland Clinic says.

Despite her injury, the Bristol Bears beat the Leicester Tigers, 43 – 29. 

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