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Rapper who befriended 81-year-old woman over online game finally meet in person

Click to play video: 'Man, 22, woman, 81, form unlikely friendship through game app ‘Words With Friends’'
Man, 22, woman, 81, form unlikely friendship through game app ‘Words With Friends’
WATCH: The pair played hundreds of games together and met for the first time on Dec. 1 – Dec 5, 2017

It’s a viral story on Twitter about friendship that’s leaving social media users overwhelmed with joy.

Spencer Sleyon, a 22-year-old rapper of New York City, recently met 81-year-old Rosalind Guttman of Palm Beach, Fla., after becoming friends online over the popular word game, Words With Friends.

Sleyon, who is originally from Maryland, posted photos of the encounter in Palm Beach on Twitter last week.

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“So last summer I randomly met this 80 y/o woman on words with friends. We played 300+ games together and she actually ended up becoming a good friend of mine. Today I got to go to Florida and meet her in person,” he wrote on the social media site.

He also added he clearly was the winner through all those games.

The four pictures, which show Sleyon and Guttman hugging, chatting and posing for a photo, got more than 240,000 retweets and more than one million likes in five days.

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Speaking with ABC News, Sleyon said the two started chatting over the app and became good friends, despite their differences. “[She was] someone I could confide in,” he told the news site.
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When he moved to New York City, he deactivated the game and lost communication with Guttman, who currently lives in a retirement home. But it was a local pastor named Amy Butler who finally brought the two together.

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“This was a phenomenal story, especially in this very scary time where we are being manipulated by fear and divided, that two people would forge a friendship like this,” Butler told ABC News.

Butler contacted the 81-year-old and flew with the rapper to Palm Beach for the meet-up.

“It was really cool meeting her,” he continued. “She is lovely and has a great personality.”

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Social media users react

On Instagram, many users shared their support and kind words about this incredible friendship.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcL0OlZFsm-/?taken-by=filth800

“I just adored this story! Please keep this great friendship! It says so much about both of you and give all people a [true] sense of what a real friendship is,” user celesterodasdejuarez wrote on Instagram.

“Saw your post on another page and had to look you up the reach out and say just how AWESOME I think this is! There truly are good and beautiful people in this world,” user samanthas6070 wrote.

On Twitter, the sentiments about the duo were similar — some even shared their own stories of unlikely friendships.

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https://twitter.com/KimVanMunching/status/936809005221011457

READ MORE: A moment by the beach — Australian paramedics fulfil dying woman’s wish

https://twitter.com/tvsnate/status/936780606435876864

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Over the weekend, Words with Friends tweeted how they couldn’t “get enough” of this viral story.

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According to Mashable, Sleyon said the two hung out all day, had lunch and went sightseeing in West Palm Beach. The two often talk about politics, even though they had opposing viewpoints.

“In 2016 I thought we were on the same page [politically] but I learned later that she was not. I put that past me because I knew Rosalind before her political views and I wasn’t gonna let that change [us],” Sleyon told the site.
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arti.patel@globalnews.ca

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