Antonela Roccuzzo has a secret that is no longer so secret: she has a passion for reading. The wife of Lionel Messi surprised her millions of followers by debuting on TikTok with a video lasting just nine seconds in which she answered the question, “Do you have any hobbies? I…” while showcasing her impressive personal library.
The clip, tagged with the hashtag #BookTok and accompanied by the message "We start with books," became an instant phenomenon: it amassed over 1.7 million views, 425,300 likes, and 18,200 shares in less than 48 hours. In under an hour after being published, its brand new account already surpassed 200,000 followers.
The rosarinian announced her arrival on the platform through her Instagram stories, where more than 40 million people follow her, inviting her fans to discover this new corner of her daily life.
What no one expected was the magnitude of her collection. Among the titles that followers managed to identify are works by Stephen King, Colleen Hoover, Isabel Allende, and Danielle Steel, along with fantasy and romance sagas such as Blood Wings by Rebecca Yarros, A Court of Roses and Thorns by Sarah J. Maas, and Fire Horse by the Argentine Florencia Bonelli.
But the highlight of the library was the complete collection of Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, a passion that Antonela had already hinted at in February 2025, when she celebrated her 37th birthday with a themed party based on the magical saga at her home in Miami.
The debut on TikTok came at a time of maximum exposure for the family: the eve of the match between Argentina and Egypt in the Round of 16 of the 2026 World Cup, where Messi reached his 20 historic goals in World Cups. Antonela quickly reacted on Instagram: "Go Argentina @leomessi there are no words left," she wrote after the victory, a post that garnered over 1.4 million "likes."
The #BookTok movement, in which Antonela has just made her triumphant entrance, originated in 2020 during the lockdowns due to the pandemic and today boasts over 7 billion views and nearly 73 million posts. It has transformed reading into a social and viral activity, catapulting authors like Colleen Hoover, Sarah J. Maas, and Rebecca Yarros — all featured in Antonela's library — to the top of the global bestseller lists.
Antonela herself dropped a hint about what's coming: with the text "We start with books," she made it clear that her adventure on TikTok has just begun, and that books are only the first chapter.
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