What started as a fun game for a 4-year-old girl and her dad, in which she tried to pick winners of NFL games, took a scary turn when the girl and her family started to receive death threats.
Reese Donatelli and her father, Anthony, have gone viral with their Trust the Toddler series on Anthony’s social media accounts. Originally a way to teach Reese colors and geography using NFL football helmets, Reese would pick the helmets she thought belonged to the team that would win that week’s games.
But after the 2025-26 Wild Card round of the NFL playoffs, during which Reese went 0-6 in her picks, online gamblers began to accuse the pair of being a reverse-jinx.
“It’s nuts. She’s obviously not an NFL analyst,” Anthony told the Los Angeles Times in a story published Tuesday, June 20. “She’s picking teams based on the color of her dress, or she’ll pick the Packers because she likes cheese. She just relates these silly little things as reasons why she picks certain teams.”
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Anthony said that gamblers began messaging him, alleging they lost thousands of dollars because of Reese’s incorrect picks.
Even Cardi B piled on Reese, saying in an Instagram live session after she picked the New England Patriots to beat the Houston Texans in the Divisional round, “Little white girl said we’re going to win. F*** that bitch!” She immediately added, “I didn’t mean to say that.” (Cardi’s boyfriend, Stefon Diggs, is a wide receiver for the Patriots.)
After Reese’s prediction proved right — and not the dreaded reverse jinx — Donatelli called Cardi’s comments “unfortunate.”
“I’m not here to fight fire with fire. I’m not angry,” he said. “We don’t want anybody or anything to ruin what Reese and I have created and how we bond.”
The Trust the Toddler series started when Reese was barely 1 year old when Anthony purchased mini NFL helmets from Amazon, hoping to share his love of football with his daughter. He recalled that when he first placed helmets in front of her, she picked one up and threw it across the room.
“I said, you know what, we might have something here,” he said. “It just clicked. I would put the match-ups of who was going to play that week in front of her, and for the past four years she’s been calling football games. And she’s been pretty dang good at it.”
Anthony’s Instagram and X channels have since been switched to private.
When the Patriots defeated the Texans on Sunday, January 18, marking her only correct pick of the playoffs so far, Anthony added a lighthearted post via Instagram, writing, “the curse has been reversed,” next to a picture of Reese.
While some followers appreciated the post, with one joking that they “lost $10 million” as a result of the reverse-jinx, others continued to post hateful messages in the comments, according to the Los Angeles Times.
One user offered some sage advice to online gamblers, writing, “If [you’re] letting a kid pick your parlays you shouldn’t be betting.”
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