Joe Burrow’s rumored girlfriend Olivia Ponton has discussed enduring a ‘hard time’ in October, after the NFL quarterback hinted at troubles in his personal life.
Ponton held an Instagram Q&A with her followers on Tuesday as she reflected on 2025 and said that in October, she was dealing with something difficult.
Replying to a question asking what Ponton’s most difficult month of the year was, she replied with a video of her friend and wrote: “October was a pretty hard month for me but thankfully I got this girl next to me.’
She didn’t elaborate further but the timing is intriguing given how Burrow has also alluded to struggles away from football.
Speaking in December after his Cincinnati Bengals team lost to the Buffalo Bills, a visibly downbeat Burrow also hinted at woes in his personal life.
‘There’s a lot of things going on right now,’ he said when asked if he had something on his mind. When the reporter followed up by asking if that was a football-related remark or a reference to his personal life, Burrow simply said: ‘All the above.’
Olivia Ponton said it was a hard October, echoing comments by rumored boyfriend Joe Burrow
In December, Burrow told reporters he had ‘a lot going’ in football and in his personal life
In a post on her Instagram page, Ponton thanked her friend for support through October
Burrow and the Bengals entered the NFL season with huge hopes but the quarterback’s campaign was disrupted by injury in Week 2 that left him requiring toe surgery.
When he returned, the team were facing an uphill fight to make the playoffs and they ultimately fell short.
‘I think I’ve been through more than most, and it’s certainly not easy on the brain or the body, so I’m just trying to have fun doing it again,’ Burrow said that day in December after the Bills loss.
His suspected relationship with Ponton emerged when, last December, there was a break-in at Burrow’s mansion while he was playing for the Bengals in Dallas against the Cowboys.
It emerged that Ponton was at Burrow’s home when it was broken into and she called the police.
At the time, Burrow was believed to be engaged to longtime girlfriend Olivia Holzmacher but they hadn’t been featured on each other’s social media since Jan. 2024.
Burrow will play in the final Bengals game of the season, against Cleveland Browns on Sunday, before attention turns to a break and building up to the 2026 campaign.
