Thoughts on SHW take on SB and Sassenach historian. It's becoming clear that Sam has entered into a mutually beneficial working relationship with Haley Beaupre.
Anon is probably referring to this post by SHW, which Iāll link here for context. Itās a good catch, because purely in terms of body language and access, the photos are interesting.
I actually wrote about this general dynamic last year in a post specifically about Hailey & Rebecca, fandom gatekeeping and proximity mechanics, so Iāll link that here too:
Fandom Gatekeeping for Beginners: Why Some Women Get Backstage & You Donāt
My take on this hasnāt really changed.
With Hailey, the important point is usefulness. Sheās in the right orbit for this kind of thing: Scotland, Outlander tourism, fan-facing content, photography, whisky-adjacent visibility, and a very brand-safe public image. That matters a lot.
Brands, especially smaller brands, donāt usually need the most glamorous person in the room. They need someone reliable, available, useful, local enough, and unlikely to cause a PR headache five minutes after being given access.Ā That isnāt magic, itās workflow.
So when we see someone like Hailey close to Sam at an event, I donāt immediately think, āOh, this must mean something personal.ā It can simply mean: sheās known within that ecosystem, she produces usable content, she has a reason to be there, and the brand benefits from that kind of controlled fan-facing visibility.
That doesnāt mean the photos donāt look close. They do. In that one shot, the body language is very direct: sheās close, front-facing, clearly comfortable in his space, and heās leaning in enough for the photo to look more intimate than an ordinary fan snap.
So yes, I understand why people react to it, but context matters.
In the wider photo, sheās still standing in a fan/event environment. It looks less like a private moment and more like a familiar brand-adjacent person getting access while other people are also gathered around. That isnāt the same thing as personal intimacy, itās access. And access always looks more exciting from the outside than it probably is from the inside.
The more interesting distinction, to me, is not āHailey versus SBā. Itās what kind of proximity each woman seems to represent.
Hailey appears to sit in the brand/fandom/tourism ecosystem. Sheās useful to that space. She documents, promotes, attends, photographs, shares, creates content and helps keep the brand visible to exactly the kind of audience the brand wants to reach. Thatās a professional-adjacent kind of proximity.
SB, on the other hand, seems to be trying to occupy a much more personal role: partner, public girlfriend, emotional attachment, woman-in-his-world. Whether that role is solid, convincing or mutually balanced is another question, but itās a very different type of positioning.
So for me, the difference is this: Hailey stands near the brand, SB stands near the man. And those are not the same thing.
Small final note: perhaps what makes these photos stand out is not that Hailey looks ātoo closeā, but that the professional-adjacent closeness looks oddly more natural than the supposedly personal one.
