Pics of these unlikely friends meeting for the first time have blown up the internet.
If you saw Spencer Sleyon and Rosalind “Roz” Guttman walking down the street together, you probably wouldn't assume they're BFFs.
Make no mistake, however. Sleyon, a 22-year-old rapper who lives in Harlem, and Guttman, an 81-year-old who lives in Florida, really are two peas in a pod.
And on Dec. 1, they finally got to meet in person.
Photos by Amy Butler, with permission.
Their unlikely friendship started in the summer of 2016.
Sleyon and Guttman met while facing off on Words with Friends, a Scrabble-like game people can play on their phones against strangers near and far. They both enjoyed playing one another, Sleyon explains, so it was only a matter of time before they were both knocking out several rounds every day.
Because the game is connected through Facebook, both Sleyon and Guttman knew who they were competing against and soon began chatting online. Before long, the conversation turned from the game to things happening in the real world.
“2016 was such a big year for politics and hurricanes — stuff like that," Sleyon says of the types of topics they'd discuss, noting he'd also chat with her about his music. "We talked about literally just anything.”
When Sleyon got particularly busy last year, however, he had to get rid of the app.
“I told her, 'my life is pretty busy right now, I don’t have time to play every day consistently,'" Sleyon says of saying goodbye. "'But if there was some advice you could give me about life, what would it be?' And she told me, 'Always reach for the stars.'”
The inspiring message stuck with him.
Months later, he decided to download the app again, after life got a little less hectic. It was then that his friend's mom, Amy Butler — senior minister at NYC's Riverside Church — learned about Sleyon's interstate friendship.
“I was telling Pastor Amy [about Guttman], and she couldn’t believe it," Sleyon says. "She wanted to write a sermon on it.”
A few weeks after that, Butler surprised Sleyon with a trip to Florida to finally meet Guttman in person.
And, as the pics show, their meeting did not disappoint.
“She was awesome," Sleyon says of finally getting to meet Guttman. "I’ve worked in grocery stores and stuff, so I’ve been friendly with older people in person. And that ’s honestly what it felt like — like I just saw someone from the neighborhood. That’s why I was really happy.”
“It ended up becoming a true friendship.”
After Sleyon tweeted about the experience, the internet went wild.
In just a few days, the photos of Guttman and Sleyon received over one million likes and over 230,000 retweets.
Even Frank Gibeau, the CEO of Zynga, the developer of Words with Friends, heard about Sleyon and Guttman's friendship: “Spencer and Roz’s story is a wonderful illustration of how powerful games can be in bringing people together across generations and geographies," he said in a statement.
The tweet's thread is filled with moving messages, too, reflecting how much seeing the photos and learning Sleyon's story has meant to so many people.
"This is the kinda thing I wanna see in America," one user wrote. "Not the negative stuff that’s talked about on a daily basis."
Sleyon's not exactly sure why the photos have spread so far and wide, but he believes seeing people from very different walks of life befriending one another has something to do with it.
“The state our country is in right now — there’s a huge racial divide," he explains. "I saw a lot of people saying they needed a story like this."
For now, he's just grateful his story is putting smiles on faces.






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Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.