A timeline of the messy controversy between hockey star Alexander Wennberg and TikTok's book community
Romance books are more popular than ever, with NPD Bookscan finding that print sales for the genre increased 51% in 2022, according to Bloomberg.
Much of that growth can be traced back to TikTok, where readers celebrate romance books on a corner of the app called BookTok. Over eight billion videos have been posted with the #romancebooks tag on the app, and you can find TikTok creators recommending romance books under a variety of subgenres, such as fantasy love stories, small-town romances, or even cowboy rom-coms.
In 2023, romance books about hockey players took the app by storm. To date, the hashtag #hockeybook has been used 64.4 million times on TikTok, #hockeybooks has been used 52.5 million times, and #hockeybooktook was used 23.3 million times.
Some readers' love of books about hockey players appears to have morphed into a love of the game itself, with people becoming fans of teams or players after they dove into the genre.
Lewis posted vlogs of herself watching Seattle Kraken games, and her commentary throughout the games focused on how attractive she found the players.
She also appeared to take a special interest in Kraken player Alex Wennberg, 28. He was featured in her first video about the hottest men of hockey, and she specifically mentioned how attractive she finds him in several videos, adding the tag #alexwennberg to videos posted on April 27 and 29.
Lewis also used the phrase "krak my back" in her videos, referencing the team and the phrase "break my back," a sexual innuendo.
Representatives for the Seattle Kraken, Alex Wennberg, and his wife Felicia Wennberg, 28, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The Kraken caught wind of Lewis' videos, which were racking up hundreds of thousands of views.
The team's official TikTok account commented on multiple of her videos, appearing to encourage her interest in the team and its players.
The team commented "energy unmatched" and "let's gooooo" on two of Lewis' videos on April 28. The comments, viewed by Insider, were still on the page at the time of writing.
In addition, the Kraken leaned into BookTok's interest in hockey romance books on its own page, changing its bio to "mostly Booktok" and posting videos of players walking in slow motion.
The Kraken team invited Lewis to attend one of its playoff games on May 9, gifting her a custom team jersey that said "BookTok."
Lewis posted multiple videos from the game, emphasizing Alex in her posts by sharing multiple clips of him doing groin stretches and skating during the game.
"21! Can you do something — oh yes, you can do something for me," she yelled at him over the glass.
She then spoke to the camera, saying, "The pictures don't do Wennburg justice. He's like a fucking Ken doll."
"Damn, I'm trying to be in between his legs," she said in another clip when Alex skated by her.
Lewis, who was sitting behind the glass at the game, told followers in a follow-up video that she was unaware the players could hear her commentary.
When Alex first became popular on BookTok, Felicia admitted she was supportive of the attention.
But on July 28, she posted two Instagram stories sharing that she had become uncomfortable with the way some people talked about her husband on the app.
"So I've joked before and called my husband BookTok's w*nkb*nk and honestly did not mind," she said in her first story, which showed a mostly covered screenshot of a video of Alex warming up. "I always thought Alex was the most beautiful person in the world and that it just seems the world finally caught up to it."
She went on to say that she thinks some TikTok users' content about Alex had "crossed the line" and become "predatory and exploiting."
In the second video, she posted a screenshot of the comment section of one of Lewis' videos, which showed Alex stretching his groin and has since been deleted. Lewis' name was visible in the screenshot.
"What doesn't sit with me is when your desires come with sexual harassment, inappropriate comments and the fact that with the internet we can normalize behavior that would never be ok if we flipped the genders around to a guy doing this to a female athlete," Felicia wrote on Instagram. "I mean no hate on the BookTok community just a little request for people to think twice about their comments/videos or chanting 'krak my back' at humans with feelings."
Although the Seattle Kraken did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, an NHL spokesperson said in a statement to Insider that the organization "has been in touch with both the Seattle Kraken and the Wennbergs and has protocols in place to support and protect players and their families."
"I really wanted my post to be one statement and be taken for what it was: a request for accountability, respect, boundaries and for people to educate themselves on sexual harassment, consent and the double standard I see online," Felicia wrote in her statement. "I am however sorry that the creator to the video took this as a direct attack on her."
Felicia went on to say she included the screenshot of Lewis' video to highlight "the problematic following and harassing behavior" some BookTok content can create, adding that she was receiving comments on her Instagram that further proved her point.
Felicia also responded to Lewis' comments about the timing of her statement.
"I understand that people are confused by the timing of my statement but while the creator is hung up on it being 4 months since she posted the video she and her following seem unable to grasp that the video continued to show up in our life on a daily basis," she said, speaking of the video of Alex stretching.
"We get sent the video and other videos of Alex on a weekly if not daily basis. Every game I've been to and talk to fans, I get in my head about not knowing if these are genuine hockey fans or people that comment that they masturb@te with his jersey on," she went on to say.
Felicia also said she had an issue "with the toxic collective," not Lewis personally, which is why she didn't respond to her messages.
"With that said, I don't want people to go after her," she added. "However, if you post videos that make people uncomfortable maybe the videos are the issue and not the people that are made uncomfortable by them?"
"Over the last couple days, me and especially my wife, have been getting lots of criticism about speaking up on sexually harassment on TikTok," he wrote. "As someone who's been media trained my whole career I've been taught to bite my tongue and to leave it instead of making a statement. But it has gone too far for me to stay quiet when people post vile comments on my wife's Instagram and on photos of our child."
"The reason my wife said something and not me is simply she does it better and more bravely than me," he went on to say.
"I'm all for the BookTok community to write books and fiction about hockey but the aggressive language about real life players is too much," Alex's statement continued. "It has turned into daily and weekly comments on our personal social media. This is not something we support or want our child to grow up with. All we ask for is a little respect and common sense regarding moving forward."
"We can all take a joke and funny comments but when it turns personal and into something bigger that affects our family we need to tell you that we have had enough," he added. "Enough of sexual harassment, and harassment of our character and our relationship. Thank you for understanding."
Lewis posted three more TikTok videos about the situation after Felicia released her second statement.
In both videos, she voiced frustration that the Kraken unfollowed her with no warning after previously encouraging her content and that Felicia had only singled out her account in her story. In her third video, Lewis posted her own written statement.
"On Thursday, Alex Wennberg's wife (Felicia Wennberg) made a post not only attacking Booktok but me as a person," the statement said. "She slanders my name by calling me a sexual harasser in reference to a saying that was clearly played off of the Seattle Kraken name 'Krack My Back.' Not only did she miss the joke of it being a spin off of 'Break My Back' but she purposelessly included my name on her Instagram story which lead to me receiving hate from her following."
Lewis said she had reached out to Felicia to apologize and offer a solution such as deleting all the videos, but she never got a response.
The statement went on to say that the Seattle Kraken's TikTok gained 60,000 followers after she attended their playoff game and had always appeared to encourage her videos.
"Instead of messaging me and explaining what was going on, the Kraken social media team just covered their tracks by deleting all videos related to Booktok and Wennberg," Lewis said. "So I then went to TikTok to defend myself and explain my side of the story."