Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams paints his fingernails blue and wears a white rose in his hair — he must be gay! There is no other explanation (cue the sarcasm meter).
Williams set off the a kerfuffle Sunday when he posted a photo stream on Instagram, writing, “Young n in control.” The photos clearly show he has blue fingernails and in one image he is wearing a rose in his hair.
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The photos resulted in 60,000 likes on Instagram and positive comments, but on X there were many comments questioning his orientation (“Is he gay?” “Will he be the first gay QB to win a Super Bowl?” “I’m sorry, the nail painting for dudes will never be normalized”), some of them anti-gay.
This is a recurring theme any time Williams post photos of his fingernails a different color. People get offended, others defend him and it’s all predictable.
For the record, I have no idea how Williams identifies. He could be gay or straight or bi or pansexual, but painting his nails and wearing flowers in his hair offer zero evidence of how he identifies.
It simply means he has a style where he enjoys having his nails a different color. As Outsports’ Ken Schultz wrote last year: “Just to be clear what their rules apparently are: Painting your face in team colors is perfectly acceptable behavior. Taking your shirt off and painting your bare chest in 0-degree weather is as heterosexual as you can get.”
As is often the case, the simplest explanation makes the most sense. In this case, Williams paints his nails to honor his mom, a nail technician.
“It started, I would say, three years ago,” Williams said in 2023 while at USC. “It was my last year of high school. My mom does nails. Let’s just start it off there. She’s done it my whole life. It’s just kind of always been around me. Nobody else does it. I just kinda like to do new things.”
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) warms up during minicamp at Halas Hall in June. His nails are not painted. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images
Williams was the top pick in the 2024 NFL Draft and had a rough rookie season that saw the Bears go 5-12 and got their coach fired. Chicago hired offensive wunderkind Ben Johnson as his new coach and I guarantee that Williams’ ability to lead an offense matters way more to Johnson than what color his quarterback’s nails are.
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