How did Haley Kalil become Haylee Baylee? Influencer's career and personal life explored

Haley Kalil, popularly known as Haylee Baylee, is one of the most influential creators on social media. Before her social media fame, she studied biomedical engineering and was involved in pageantry.

She competed on catwalks and was named Miss Minnesota USA in 2014. She also participated in the Miss USA 2014 competition, although she didn’t emerge winner. She transitioned into modeling and graced the covers of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue in 2018.

She was formerly married to NFL player Matt Kalil from 2015 to 2022, when she filed for divorce. Haylee Baylee currently boasts 15.3 million followers on TikTok and 9.2 million on Instagram. Her journey to fame is one of dedication and perseverance.

Haylee Baylee details her career journey in an interview with Dhar Mann

Dhar Mann interviewed the 32-year-old online personality in July 2025, and she talked about her journey to becoming a popular creator.

Interviewer: Can you tell me about your life in sixty seconds?

Haylee Baylee: So I was born in Victoria, Minnesota. I grew up watching Saturday Night Live, which is funny because you never think your kid is going to say I want to be a standup comedian but I was that kid. My two parents, who were engineers, would have never let that happen.

She spoke about how her passion for comedy changed to wanting a career path in medicine:

“I went from wanting to be a comedian to wanting to be a doctor, to graduating school to become a doctor, getting married at 21, moving to New York to become a model, and then getting divorced at 29."

After her divorce, she was at a crossroads career-wise:

“After my divorce, I was going through it. I had just changed careers; my modeling career had ended. I had two weeks left on an apartment I couldn’t afford and didn’t know what to do.”

She revealed that she began to doubt herself after her modelling career was placed on hold. The turning point for her came at the expiration of her tenancy. A popular TikToker featured her on an episode of his apartment tour show, and she capitalized on the millions of views that she got from the episode to build a solid career on social media:

“I had two weeks left. I could not afford it, and a creator named Caleb Simpson asked if he could come tour my place, and I think on TikTok alone, within the first five hours, it was 55 million views. I saw that, and I was like This is my chance. My dream just reignited—my comedy dream, and I just started posting five videos every day on every platform for a year and a half, and it changed my entire life."

Haylee Baylee at the end of the interview advised others not to give up on their dream.

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