"Dinner invitation accepted @tomholland2013. A little late 😅 Just name the place!" Erling Haaland, the man who spent a month making the World Cup his personal highlight reel, needed a late-night television segment to reply to a text.
Tom Holland revealed on The Tonight Show on July 13 that he'd slid into Haaland's DMs after spotting the striker at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix in June — and received absolutely nothing back. Not a read receipt. Not a "busy training" brush-off. Silence. Holland took it well, calling it "exactly the type of humbling experience that is important for actors." He also dropped the detail that Haaland, who famously doesn't watch films, simply had no idea who Holland was and presumably treated the message like any other cold DM from a stranger.
Two days and a viral segment later
Haaland commented on the show's Instagram clip on July 15 — two days after the interview aired. So it wasn't that he missed the DM. It's that international Spider-Man fame apparently doesn't cut through when you're Erling Haaland and you've just carried Norway to a World Cup quarterfinal.
Holland had cheekily suggested dinner might be off the table anyway, given England knocked Norway out in the quarterfinals on July 11. Haaland didn't address that particular wound in his reply.
The whole episode is a neat illustration of where Haaland sits culturally right now. Channing Tatum wore a Haaland wig to a match. He went viral for his Hermès bag collection. He led the Viking row with fans in the stands and flew home from the US holding a taxidermied raccoon. He attended the Dolce & Gabbana Alta Sartoria show in matching looks with his girlfriend Isabel Haugseng Johansen within days of elimination.
The man is operating on a different level of celebrity — one where A-list actors have to wait for a TV callout to get a reply. Holland finally got his dinner. Haaland just made him work for it.
