Monday mornings are notoriously tough. But as we discovered on set with WNBA stars Natisha Hiedeman and Courtney Williams for their Vogue shoot, even the most dreaded part of the week turns fun and entertaining when you’re around the duo known as the Stud Budz.
“Hey, Court! You got nipple covers on?” Hiedeman calls out, sounding surprised as she steps from behind tall black dressing curtains.
“Yes!” Williams replies, just as amused. They both burst into contagious laughter.
Though both Minnesota Lynx guards are used to team and individual photo shoots, the sticky fashion essential is new to them. That shared discovery is just one of many moments that reveal a friendship captivating both WNBA fans and pop culture followers.
Throughout the morning, they chat about everything from their playing styles—Court is a competitive “dog,” while T (as Hiedeman is known) is an “energetic” player who loves to have fun—to what they admire most in each other. “My friend is genuine and caring,” Hiedeman says of Williams. “She really looks out for the people she loves.” Williams describes Hiedeman as “the sweetest thing ever—so gentle and soft.”
They both love Phoenix road trips for the weather and food, and while they’re enjoying New York, Williams notes, “Ya’ll bump into people and don’t even say sorry! That’s wild to me.” On the rare occasions they disagree, the issues are so minor neither can even remember what they were.
Courtney wears a Gucci suit, a Nhat-Vu Dang necklace, and Manolo Blahnik shoes.
Photographed by Rasaan Wyzard.
Hiedeman and Williams have played in the WNBA for seven and ten seasons, respectively. Their careers have spanned a period of explosive growth for the league and women’s sports overall. Their names gained wider attention during last year’s WNBA Finals, where the Lynx lost a controversial Game 5 overtime thriller to the New York Liberty. Their popularity grew even more this season when they started streaming their locker room chats and everyday conversations on Twitch. They felt “Stud Budz” perfectly captured who they are: two masculine-presenting Black gay women who are best friends.
“Honestly, I saw streamers getting that bag,” Williams says, referring to content creators like Kai Cenat who’ve built successful careers on Twitch. “We’re together every day, our team is doing well—why not take advantage? Streaming is easy. You just turn the phone on and get it poppin’.”
And get it poppin’ they did. Their first stream in June drew about 50 viewers as they talked about their day as friends and teammates. Later videos showed them scootering through Minneapolis, shopping at the mall, and spending an afternoon at Six Flags. Then came their viral stream from WNBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis: 72 straight hours of parties, fashion, basketball, and all kinds of fun. You’d think Williams being an All-Star—on a team captained by her Lynx teammate Napheesa Collier—would mean time for practice, media, and sleep. Not quite.
“It was just so fun,” Hiedeman says of the exhausting but successful feat. “We got to show everything that was happening, all the behind-the-scenes.” Instantly recognizable with their freshly dyed hot pink hair, the two filmed themselves dancing to “Knuck If You Buck” with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert and drinking Crown Royal Regal Apple straight from the bottle with L.A. Sparks guard…Kelsey Plum and fervently requesting songs from the DJ at a Sports Illustrated party, even though, as Williams says, “we didn’t even know who that guy was” in the booth. (That guy turned out to be Diplo.) Another viral moment came when Hiedeman playfully flirted with Angel Reese before realizing, “I can’t afford you,” she told the Chicago Sky forward and former Vogue cover star. Reese replied, “That’s why you’re not for me.”
Courtney wears Loewe pants and jacket, a Drake’s London shirt, and a Johnny Valentine bracelet. Natisha wears a Burberry shirt and pants, a Linder Sport sweater, and an Hermès scarf.
Photographed by Rasaan Wyzard.
It’s a great time to be a Stud Bud. The WNBA’s soaring popularity, combined with both players’ on-court dominance and magnetic online presence, has brought them visibility and opportunities once unheard of for female basketball players. Hiedeman and Williams have partnered with brands like CashApp, DoorDash, and Sprite, boast over 119,000 followers on their shared Instagram account, and launched a line of Stud Budz merchandise. Since All-Star Weekend, they’ve been on the cover of Slam magazine, thrown the first pitch at a Minnesota Twins game, and arrived at their own games—home and away—to see dozens of fans wearing hot pink wings. All this while playing key roles in helping the Lynx maintain their number-one league ranking.
The key to balancing their WNBA careers with everything else they’re involved in is simple: “Basketball first,” Hiedeman says. And while they aim to stream as often as possible outside of game days, “if we don’t want to do it, we just don’t do it,” Williams adds. “We’re the bosses; nobody tells us what to do.”
Though All-Star Weekend brought unprecedented attention to the Hiedeman-Williams friendship—marked by comedic banter, spontaneous dancing, and frequently calling each other “twin”—they’ve been close for years.
“We met my rookie year in 2019 when I joined the Connecticut Sun,” Hiedeman says of meeting Williams. “I just wanted to hang out with her because she was the coolest person on the team.” At the time, Williams kept her personal and professional lives completely separate, never mixing friend groups. “But then I felt her vibe,” she says of Hiedeman, “and she was the only one on the team I invited to my birthday.” A series of trades and opportunities to play abroad soon separated them, but they stayed in touch and were reunited as teammates last season when both signed with the Lynx.
“I remember the day we became best friends,” Williams says, recalling the night before a preseason game against the Sky. “I was going through a breakup and called T crying in the hotel room. My dog just stayed on the phone with me and talked me through it. I said, ‘This really is my best friend.’ And she told me the next day, ‘Bro, we really are best friends—I’ve never heard you cry before.'”
While the success of the Stud Budz stream couldn’t have been predicted, the least surprising part of their story is that, amid their popularity, they’ve inevitably faced backlash. In late July, Hiedeman and Williams noticed that Dave Portnoy was among those praising them and announced that the Barstool Sports founder would be a future guest on their stream. Fans of Reese—whom Portnoy has routinely mocked and criticized—were not pleased, expressing their anger through countless comments, reels, TikToks, and calls for cancellation.
“Honestly, we didn’t even know who that guy was,” Williams says. “Again, we didn’t even know who Diplo was, so we were just like, ‘Bro seems like he’s poppin’. He owns Barstool, he’s got all these followers, and he’s showing us love. Why wouldn’t we have him on?'””Someone like that on the stream?” Reese’s fans quickly responded, labeling the Stud Budz as “sellouts” and promising to stop watching their streams. Puzzled by comments questioning how they could feature Portnoy if they were friends with Reese, they called her. Williams recounts the conversation: “She basically said he made her uncomfortable and had been saying nasty things about her online.” That was enough for them. “Angel is really our friend, and we never want to make anyone we work with or are close to uncomfortable. So we decided, alright, that’s it.”
While they’re open to discussing the situation in person when asked, they didn’t feel the need to address it on their stream. Williams explains, “We talked with Angel, and I think that’s all that situation required.” (Needless to say, Portnoy won’t be appearing on the Stud Budz stream.)
The surge in attention, both positive and negative, has been an adjustment for Hiedeman and Williams, especially since neither envisioned a public career growing up. Williams, from a small town in Georgia, saw the military as her only way out until a last-minute offer from the University of South Florida arrived, which her mother urged her to accept. Hiedeman, from Green Bay, Wisconsin, planned to attend college on a scholarship to Marquette but admits, “I just wanted to get through school; I didn’t know what I was going to do after.” Still, she always knew who she was.
Hiedeman shares, “I was always a tomboy and never liked boys,” noting she avoided dresses even when her mother hoped to pick one for prom. By then, she had already come out to her parents: “I don’t like boys, I like girls; and I’m not dressing like that, I’m dressing like this.” Her parents were supportive, saying they already knew and were completely cool with it.
Williams, on the other hand, says, “I’ll be honest, I was late to the gay party.” She had a boyfriend in her teens, started dating women in college, and identified as bisexual when drafted into the WNBA—an event for which she wore a tight black mini dress and red pumps with long hair. A turning point came after the 2017 season when she cut her hair short and fully embraced being “a stud.”
“Life is so much easier now,” Williams says. “I don’t have to worry about my hair, wear heels, or put on makeup.” For today’s Vogue shoot, only Williams is wearing makeup, and when Hiedeman playfully catcalls her on set, calling her “girly” and “fine,” Williams replies matter-of-factly, “Duh! I’m a bad bitch!”
“Playful” is key when describing Hiedeman’s flirting on set. Despite fans insisting the two are secretly in love, Williams clarifies, “Me and T aren’t having sex.” Hiedeman adds, “My friend is very cute, but just not my type.”
So what is her type? “Baddies,” Hiedeman says, explaining she’s drawn to girly girls with a nice smile who can also be “a bit of a bro.”
Williams interjects, “Me and T differ on that. I like very feminine, submissive energy. I don’t need my woman to be my bro.”
Hiedeman concludes, “And that’s good because we don’t like the same girls.” Neither is seriously seeing anyone at the moment.They aren’t dating anyone right now, though last month they did stream themselves on a double date.
“But that was just for fun,” Williams says. “That wasn’t about looking for love. I’m not looking for love—T is always looking for love.”
“If love finds me, it finds me,” Hiedeman admits.
“If love finds me, I don’t want to be found!” Williams says. “I swear. The perfect girl could fall right into my lap and I’d be like, ‘Yeah, no, not right now. But we can still have fun.’”
They’re aware that not everyone feels safe or empowered to live so openly.
“Courtney and I are blessed,” Hiedeman says. “My family and all my friends were super accepting of who I am, so that made it much easier for me to be myself. I know not everyone has that luxury. We try to inspire people to be who they are, especially if they don’t have support elsewhere, because I know everyone’s path isn’t the same or as easy.”
What started as a way for Hiedeman and Williams to connect with fans and monetize their camera-ready friendship has grown into something much more meaningful. Yes, they want to share their fun-filled lives as professional athletes and best friends, but most importantly, they do it while openly embracing their gay and masculine identities.
Williams points out that if you ask the average person to “name some stylish studs besides Young M.A,” they’d probably struggle. But they could easily “name all the baddies right away.” She and Hiedeman want to change that. “We’re too popular; we look too good—people need to see us.”
Natisha wears an Issey Miyake shirt, Zankov sweater and pants, Stuart Weitzman shoes, and Johnny Valentine rings. Courtney wears a Hermès shirt, Gabriela Hearst jacket, Eckhaus Latta pants, Manolo Blahnik shoes, a Nhat-Vu Dang bracelet, and Johnny Valentine earrings.
Photographed by Rasaan Wyzard.
WNBA fans will be seeing a lot of them in the coming weeks. After tonight’s game against the Las Vegas Aces, the Lynx have three more regular season games before the playoffs begin on September 14.
“I feel super confident,” Hiedeman says about the Lynx’s championship hopes. “Since day one of training camp, our whole team has talked about what we want to accomplish this year. When you have a team that’s all on the same page—no egos, no one worried about the spotlight—that’s when it’s fun, competitive, and you just enjoy it. So I’m really excited.”
To that point, Hiedeman and Williams’s teammates are “Fan Budz”—so supportive that before their August 24 game against the Indiana Fever, the whole team came out of the locker room wearing Stud Budz SLAM T-shirts.
There are many ways to describe this moment for the friends, but Williams puts it best: “Life is lit right now.”
In this story: Grooming by Yuui using Westman Atelier. Produced by Greg Birkhofer.
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