Magnus Carlsen and Ella Victoria Malone were first spotted together in public at the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge tournament in February. Since then, she has been a regular at most of his events like at Norway Chess in Stavanger and at the recently-concluded FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship in New York.

At the Norway Chess event, Ella Victoria Malone had spoken about how she’s a private person.

“I would say that I am a person who keeps to myself socially. Although I am good at socialising. But with all the cameras here, I’m overwhelmed,” Ella Victoria Malone told Norway’s TV 2’s Sverre Krogh Sundbø. “Sometimes it’s hard to go with him to these tournaments, but I do it because I want to be a good girlfriend and support him. But it’s something I’ve gotten used to.”

She has not done too many media interviews besides that interview with TV2. Explaining why she usually doesn’t do media interviews, she said: “I think that media can take off with anything, so I try to keep away.”

Asked if she gets nervous while watching Carlsen playing, Ella Victoria Malone said: “Absolutely. It is obviously very difficult to see when he is struggling in a game. But normally I’m pretty comfortable that he’ll win.”

Magnus Carlsen has courted controversy at the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship by sharing the World Blitz title with Ian Nepomniachtchi. Magnus Carlsen and Nepo played four games in the finals, where both players won two each. They then played three tiebreaker games, which were draws. That’s when Carlsen offered to share the trophy with Nepomniachtchi.