When Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow went down with a toe injury early in the 2025 season, his backup, Jake Browning, was thrust into the NFL spotlight.
And with his promotion came even more attention on his fiancée, Stephanie Niles.
The two met in their undergraduate days at the University of Washington where Browning was the 2016 Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year. Through graduation, career changes and long-distance struggles, their relationship has endured, with the pair getting engaged in 2024.
“Remember when we agreed we weren’t going to date?” Browning recalled in an Instagram post in 2023. “Or when we finally started dating we agreed we were going to break up when you moved to NYC in 2018?”
“Five years, four different time zones and 14 different moves later, here we are,” he continued. “Whether it’s a fancy dinner party or a dive bar in Folsom, you move through life with a contagious energy and I can’t imagine where’d I’d be without my mob wife.”
As Browning has come into his own as a pro, Niles has been by his side and in the stands, supporting him with her own custom flair that has drawn both praise and criticism from her fellow fans.
Keep scrolling for everything to know about Stephanie Niles.
Stephanie Niles Was Born and Raised in China
Niles was born in Hong Kong and moved to Shanghai with her parents when she was 3 years old. Though she attended American schools in China, she did not move to the United States until 2005 when her family relocated to Seattle. She recalled in a 2021 interview with Authority Magazine that she quickly became aware that her upbringing was different from her friends’ childhoods.
“Apparently, not having seen a hot dog until I was 12 is an affront to the American childhood,” she joked.
She Met Jake Browning at the University of Washington
Niles and Browning met at Washington, where he was a standout member of the football team and she majored in information systems and accounting.
The day after graduation, she moved to New York to work for an accounting firm while Browning went undrafted and eventually caught on with the Minnesota Vikings.
Niles Co-Owns Luxury Swimwear Brand 7th Street Swim
Niles currently works in the financial department for a manufacturing company called DECKED, per Hello Magazine, but she has also built up an impressive business on the side. She is the co-founder of luxury swimwear brand 7th Street Swim, which bills itself as “where downtown cool meets uptown quality” according to its Instagram page.
She Is Known For Her Custom Bengals Outfits on Game Day
She has made headlines on more than one occasion for her custom Bengals gear that she wears on game day. Whether it’s the bejeweled and backless custom Browning jersey she wore to her fiancé’s Week 2 game in September 2025 or the white bodysuit that first caught fans’ attention in 2024, she has brought something unique to the stadium each week.
Niles and Browning Got Engaged in November 2024
Browning and Niles revealed their engagement in November 2024 with a carousel of photos taken on the beach.
“Now you’re really stuck❤️,” Browning joked in the caption.