Before the so-called “King of Crunch” entered her life in October 2020, Jessica Carole Pappas had been banking on a conventional future.
“I was very ready to have a normal Midwestern suburban life,” she said. But then Thomas Allen Winkler, known as “The Food Guy” on social media and Tommy in real life, started throwing pebbles at her window.
Both were students at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside that fall, and each had been sent to quarantine in a building separate from the rest of the student body after testing positive for Covid.
“It was a super-unique situation,” Winkler said. Had he not contracted cabin fever in addition to Covid, he might not have thrown his first fistful of pebbles at the window of Pappas, an acquaintance and the only other person he knew in isolation.
And had Pappas not heard the pinging, she may not have agreed to the boredom-busting walk he proposed.
Their walk, the first of many in a wooded area close to campus, led to romance. It also led to both eventually dropping out of college to service a growing demand for videos of Winkler eating Taco Bell Crunchwraps, gooey mozzarella sticks and other not-especially-healthful comestibles.
Pappas, 24, grew up with two older sisters and their parents in Frankfort, Ill. She was unfamiliar with Winkler’s online presence when they were introduced by friends in August 2020, at the start of her freshman and his sophomore year.
“My roommate saw him in the courtyard my first day,” she said. “I was not aware of who he was, but she was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s the TikToker’.”
Winkler, also 24, had 100,000 followers at the time and was earning his “King of Crunch” nickname by posting everything he ate in a day (rice cakes and other crunchy foods featured heavily). Money from sponsorships was already trickling in.
“I was working at a gas station, too,” Winkler said. “I started realizing, oh my goodness. I made as much on this video as in a 12-hour shift at Kwik Trip.”
His long walks with Pappas were reaping rewards, too. “We were having all these great conversations, just walking around for hours and hours,” he said. Soon after quarantine, they exchanged their first “I love yous.”
In January 2021, a sense was settling over both that they were more committed to each other than completing their bachelor’s degrees — his in marketing and hers in exercise science. At the beginning of the next term, she started doing his homework. “He didn’t ask,” she said. “He was overwhelmed with answering all his emails and editing and posting. So I offered.”
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By then, he was almost certain he was dropping out, he said. In May 2021, at the end of his sophomore year, he did, breaking the news to his parents, who raised him and his older brother in Mount Horeb, Wis. (He said they were “super supportive.”) Pappas stayed in school until the spring of 2022, when she left to devote herself to being Winkler’s executive assistant, still her full-time job.
Winkler now has more than 12 million followers on TikTok and is known both as a food influencer and a “mukbanger,” someone who eats large quantities of food on camera with little to no commentary. Why others enjoy watching him eat, however, remains somewhat of a mystery to him.
“I think it has to do with my teeth, the way I nod my head, my expression,” he said. “Also, you don’t need to speak a specific language to enjoy the content.”
Which might explain the culinary challenges proposed by international fans, like a 2023 U.S. versus Thailand McDonald’s “showdown,” for which he and Pappas traveled to Asia to investigate which country’s menu items appealed more. Together, Pappas and Winkler have traveled to more than a dozen countries for food challenges.
“Tommy was made for this life,” said Pappas, who goes by Jess. “I think it’s so cool.”
Both are careful not to let the serious business of eating take precedence over their relationship. Winkler regularly references their relationships in his TikToks, such as a 2023 video in which he forks up chicken tikka masala. “I am in love with Indian food and @jessica.pappas,” the caption reads.
Her content, including a podcast the couple started hosting together this year, “Don’t Ask with Jess and Tommy,” covers relationships, pop culture, fitness — and their devotion. “He’s steady and so supportive,” she said.
Winkler and Pappas live in a townhouse in a Chicago suburb with four cats. On June 6, 2025, he asked her to marry him on a walk at the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
On May 29, 100 guests gathered at Meyer’s Castle in Dyer, Ind., to watch the couple marry. The groom’s brother, Jonathan Winkler, who had been ordained by the Universal Life Church for the occasion, officiated. At the reception, guests were served chicken marsala, filet mignon and tiramisù.
The groom, who normally shoots his own content, didn’t film himself eating any of it.
The post He’s Famous for His Mukbangs. But They Met the Old-Fashioned Way. appeared first on New York Times.
