22-Year-Old Rapper Meets 81-Year-Old Words With Friends Opponent For First Time

Twitter/PastorAmyTRC

Friendships come in all shapes and sizes, but none that spell C-U-T-E like this one.

When a Silver Spring rapper, Spencer Sleyon, 22, logged onto a random game of Words With Friends over a year ago, he was matched with 81-year-old Rosalind ‘Roz’ Guttman, of Florida. Little did Sleyon know she would come to be his ‘best friend’.

The pair sparked an unusual companionship after Roz pulled a ‘phat’ out of the bag, impressing Sleyon, whose username ‘F*CKFACEFILTH’ was deemed ‘masterful alliteration’ by the octogenarian.

Twitter/PastorAmyTRC

The pair developed a burgeoning friendship, Sleyon told The Root, adding:

One day I searched for a random game, and that’s how I ended up finding her. And we pretty much played every day for five months.

Sometimes we’d speak about personal things, but nothing extra personal… Politics, the election, hurricanes.

Twitter/PastorAmyTRC

Sleyon logged off after life ‘became too hectic’, and the pair lost touch. Roz had told Sleyon to always reach for the stars, and in some part, that advice led him to move to Harlem to pursue his dream of producing and rapping.

While there, he reconnected with an old friend, Hannah, whose mother, Pastor Amy Butler, helped Roz and Spencer meet for the first time in person in Florida just last week.

Twitter/PastorAmyTRC

Butler told The Root:

One night, a few months ago, they started a conversation about who their best friends were, and Spencer said, ‘My best friend is an 80-year-old white woman who lives in a retirement community in Florida’, and I said, ‘What?’

…Because I’m in the business of bringing people together…I pitched the idea of meeting Roz to Spencer, and he said yes.

The story quickly went viral after Sleyon shared it with Twitter, writing:

so last summer i randomly met this 80 y/o woman on words with friends. we played 300+ games together and she actually ended up becoming a good friend of mine. today i got to go to florida and meet her in person

He shared some pictures of the friends’ reunion:

Needing some good news, the tweet has since racked up over one million likes, at time of writing.

The story has evoked a serious wave of feels, with some people admitting they cried when they saw the photographs of the two companions meeting for the first time.

Join them, and us, in sharing more of this love:

Others also shared stories about their own Friends with Words:

Others roasted the young man for his vocabulary:

But Words With Friends seem to approve anyway.

Frank Gibeau, CEO of Zynga, the makers of Words With Friends, said:

Spencer and Roz’s story is a wonderful illustration of how powerful games can be in bringing people together across generations and geographies. Since launching eight years ago, Words With Friends is an incredible platform for connection.

They have also retweeted a lot of ‘ugly cry’ memes:

When The Root asked why he thought the story went viral, Sleyon said:

Besides the obvious — the fact that I’m a young black male and this is an old white woman — a lot of people enjoyed the fact that we were able to get so close, especially given the tension in the country.

Ironically, there are no words to express the feels.

Francesca Donovan

A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.