Her Instagram tagline is yearningly romantic: 'For the love of love.'

And it's this pursuit of love which feminist icon Whitney Wolfe Herd says drove her to astonishing business success.

Crowned the world's youngest female billionaire in 2021, she made her fortune through, as she puts it, 'helping people to love each other'.

Working on revolutionary dating app Tinder from its earliest days, she then co-founded the hugely successful Bumble, which sought to 'empower' women – because they get to make the first move – in the online dating game.

Little wonder the trail-blazing 36-year-old is now the go-to voice to advocate for women in business, has Meghan Markle for a 'bestie' – and is about to see her life story the focus of new movie Swiped, starring Lily James.

Indeed, James spent much of this month's Toronto Film Festival positively gushing about her leading role portraying Wolfe's 'light and kindness'.

Wolfe was also the first guest on Meghan's podcast series, Confessions of a Female Founder, where the Duchess proclaimed Wolfe to be 'the kind of friend who just always seems to know the exact right thing to say when I need perspective'.

How then to marry all these inspiringly admirable achievements with the more troubling portrait of Wolfe that emerges in this exclusive Daily Mail investigation?

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd's start at Tinder and her subsequent success as a tech entrepreneur is set to be seen on the streaming app Hulu in the biographical film, Swiped

Wolfe is close friends with Meghan Markle, being the first to appear on the duchess' podcast series, Confessions of a Female Founder, for her status as a feminist icon who is seen as the go-to voice to advocate for women in business

Wolfe (top center) has a plethora of star-studded friends, including Lauren Sanchez (seen in white) who she was pictured with at her engagement party alongside Kris Jenner (bottom left), Veronica Smiley (top left), Lydia Kives (bottom right) and fashion designer Sarah Staudinger (top right)

For according to ten of Wolfe's former colleagues and friends who have given exclusive on-the-record interviews to the Daily Mail, recollections of Wolfe's time working at Tinder are distinctly at odds with the 'light and kindness' Lily James found so entrancing.

Several allege, for example, that Wolfe hit her Tinder boss – and then boyfriend – Justin Mateen, leaving a nasty bruise and even brandished a knife at him. (The Daily Mail has not seen proof that Wolfe caused the bruise and Wolfe's representatives denied any violence by her.)

They also claim Wolfe, who joined the start-up dating app aged 22 and later assumed the title of Vice-President of Marketing, has exaggerated her role in creating Tinder.

Damningly, they say she used racial and homophobic slurs and was less than collegiate to female colleagues.

Indeed, the Daily Mail has seen a text message[s] in which she called one colleague an 'anorexic b**ch' – and others, in which she uses the N-word, 'f**gots' and 'h*mo'.

'It's ironic to me that this person has become a feminist icon, and it's concerning it's taken 11 years for the media to uncover a deeper, darker truth to her narrative,' ex-Tinder communications chief Rosette Pambakian said.

Lawyers acting for Wolfe in Los Angeles and London have sent strongly worded legal letters to some of the interviewees the Daily Mail spoke to.

In a stunning admission, however, her representatives told us Wolfe had occasionally used vile slurs, including the N-word.

Wolfe has long been associated with the founding team behind popular dating app Tinder, founded by Justin Mateen (left) and Sean Rad (right)

But several of Wolfe's former colleagues said Tinder execs Rad (left), Mateen (center), and Jonathan Badeen (right) were the original three founders from the 'very beginning' and some disputed Wolfe's role in the creating the app 

But they blamed Tinder's macho culture, saying Wolfe only wrote them in response to her colleagues' use of the slurs, to fit in at work and keep her role.

They said her colleagues used them more often than she did and shared alleged text screenshots as evidence.

Wolfe has vehemently denied ever being physically violent or threatening, adding that she 'never lied' about her role at Tinder.

Critics at last week's premiere of Swiped – which has been described by one of its producers as a 'love letter' to Wolfe – were unaware of these explosive claims.

But some still sensed, perhaps, that they were only being told one side of a story, deeming the movie to be a 'hagiography' and 'a vanity project in disguise'.

The Hollywood Reporter said events 'surely must be more complicated than [this] straightforwardly uplifting girlboss fable'.

Indeed, Swiped portrays Wolfe as coming up with Tinder's name, masterminding its crucial early adoption by college students, falling foul of a chauvinist boss and enduring online abuse – only to then rise from the flames with her own feminist-focused app.

'It sounds like a great hero tale,' Tinder's ex-Chief Technology Officer Ryan Ogle, 46, told the Daily Mail. 'It's just completely false.'

Meghan (right) and billionaire Wolfe (left) have a strong relationship and were pictured attending a Katy Perry concert in 2023

Her former colleagues also claim Wolfe 'assaulted' her Tinder executive boyfriend Justin Mateen, allegedly leaving a bruise (pictured), but Daily mail has not seen proof Wolfe caused the injury

British actress Lily James is set to portray Wolfe in the film. Former Tinder execs say the story portrayed on screen is 'completely false' and 'sounds like a great hero tale'

The daughter of a Jewish property developer father and Catholic housewife mother, Wolfe grew up in Mormon-dominated Salt Lake City, Utah. Her upbringing was privileged - and it was a community where men overwhelmingly called the shots.

A similarly male-dominated environment awaited her when, in 2012 aged 22, she moved to Los Angeles and joined a tech start-up called Hatch Labs, meeting Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, who later became Tinder's CEO and chief marketing officer respectively.

She worked as a kind of marketing intern, staff said, eventually focusing on a project called 'Matchbox', which became Tinder.

As Wolfe tells it, she was the one who dreamt up the name Tinder, inspired by embers turning into the flame of romance.

But four former Tinder staff members say it was another co-founder, Jonathan Badeen, who thought of the name.

And four more – Ogle, Pambakian, marketing colleagues Josh Metz and Alexa Mateen, who is also sister of Justin Mateen – insist Wolfe was only ever a junior participant in the app's crucial plan to target college students.

Instead, they say Justin Mateen (now 39, he became Wolfe's boyfriend around November 2012) devised the plan to launch the dating app on US campuses and his sister Alexa largely executed it.

'I would pretty much do everything Whitney said she did,' Alexa, 34, told the Daily Mail.

Actress Lily James (second in from right) posed with the cast after production wrapped for the movie in July 2024

Ryan Ogle (left), who served as Tinder's Chief Technology Officer and Josh Metz (right), who was on the marketing team, disputed Wolfe's role at Tinder

Mateen's sister Alexa Mateen (left) was among the founding members interviewed by Daily Mail who insisted Wolfe (right) was only ever a junior participant in the app's crucial plan to target college students

An email sent on August 5, 2012, which the Daily Mail has seen, shows Justin Mateen laying out the college pitch to Tinder's CEO Sean Rad more than a month before the first campus visit and three months before he started dating Wolfe.

The plot of the movie Swiped is partly based on Wolfe's 2014 lawsuit against Tinder's then-owners IAC and Match.com, alleging sexual harassment, verbal abuse and sexism by Mateen.

Both firms denied the allegations, but quickly settled with no admission of liability. Mateen was suspended, and then resigned.

Today, though, colleagues claim Wolfe aggressively pursued Mateen in a 'toxic' and 'rollercoaster' relationship until she left Tinder in April 2014.

'When Whitney and Justin's personal relationship started to deteriorate, their professional relationship was completely eradicated. Time in the office was spent bickering,' said Metz, 38.

'During the time Whitney alleges she was being harassed by Justin at work, I and other employees witnessed the opposite,' adds ex-Tinder communications chief Rosette Pambakian.

Describing one memorable alleged incident in the office, Pambakian, 41, said she saw Wolfe 'tickling or kissing [Mateen's] neck' and him telling her to stop.

'She looked up, we made eye contact, and she turned beet red, because just moments before she was talking about how Justin was "harassing" her,' said Pambakian.

The garden party hosted at the Mateen family home to celebrate the launch of Tinder in 2012 that was posted to Instagram by Alexa (in white bathing suit)

'I remember his head in his hands, begging her to stop,' recalls Metz. 'She would try to sit on his lap.'

And in accusations at odds with Wolfe's now impeccably feminist image, Tyler Mateen – brother of Justin – said he saw Wolfe grab Justin's crotch in the office and try to 'go have sex with him in the bathroom'.

Tyler, 33, claimed Wolfe oscillated between insulting her boyfriend, saying things like 'I f***ing hate you' to desperately telling him: 'I need to have sex with you.'

Wolfe claims the romance was dead and buried by December 2013.

However, others say she continued to try to seduce Mateen after this – namely in February 2014, when Glamour Magazine threw a party for Tinder.

Among the party attendees was Mateen's close friend David Rimokh.

He said that, after Wolfe left the party, she contacted Mateen, claiming 'black men' had broken into her home.

'We rushed down to the house,' Rimokh, 38, said. 'She opened the door naked. She seemed very inebriated. She just wanted him to come over.'

Wolfe was cited in the dating app's publicity during its early days as one of the co-founders of Tinder and VP of Marketing 

Alexa, (center) pictured with Rad (left) and her brother Justin (right), was also a part of the early staff team as a marketing manager

Some former Tinder personnel also claim that as Mateen and Wolfe's relationship spiraled in late 2013 and early 2014, she escalated from verbal abuse to physical violence against him.

Both Rimokh and Pambakian said Mateen told them Wolfe hit him.

'He told me she had punched him really hard in the arm and he got a bruise,' said Pambakian. 'I was in the car and he showed it to me. He said: "She's crazy, she's now beginning to physically assault me".'

Meanwhile, Tyler Mateen claimed he saw Wolfe strike his brother 'a couple of times'.

The Daily Mail has not seen any evidence of this behavior, and Wolfe's representatives deny any such thing occurred.

Things allegedly became even more violent at a Tinder office party at a house in Malibu in April 2014 during an argument between the former couple.

'She got a steak knife from the kitchen,' Tyler Mateen said. 'She looked at Justin and started walking towards him. I had to forcibly take the knife out of her hand.'

Another partygoer said Mateen hid in the bedroom, fearing for his safety.

As in so many Hollywood films, Swiped has a 'woke' narrative arc – a black colleague called Tisha is shown helping the fictional Wolfe consider her racial privilege.

The irony is almost too much to bear for some former colleagues, who claim Tisha does not exist, and insist Wolfe was far from 'woke'.

She allegedly used the N-word, including in a January 7, 2013, text to a colleague saying: 'N**ga fa real'.

'She would say the N-word and made a lot of racist jokes,' claims Tyler Mateen, adding that Wolfe used to be one of his best friends, while other members of staff said they had no memory of her making racist jokes. Her representatives denied that she made 'racist jokes', saying Tyler's claim was 'unsubstantiated'.

In one 2013 text, Wolfe seemingly berated a colleague for making a reservation at Beverly Hills restaurant Spago, writing: 'Spago is for Arabs and FOBs', meaning 'Fresh Off the Boat', a disparaging term for immigrants.

Today, Wolfe is a champion of gay rights, with her Bumble company donating to LGBTQ+ charities. In 2016, the firm invested in Chappy, a UK dating app for gay men.

But in texts from her Tinder days, Wolfe tells a colleague, 'shut up f**got', calls him a 'h*mo' in a Facebook message, and adds 'go back to the gay porno'.

Ex-Tinder staff also say that Wolfe's image as a champion of women rings hollow based on their experience.

Ex-staff say Wolfe used the N-word, with one January 7, 2013, text to a colleague showing she wrote 'N**ga fa real'

In Facebook messages to a male colleague, she calls him a 'h*mo' and tells him to 'go back to the gay porno'

In another, she uses a homophobic slur, telling a colleague 'shut up f**got'

'Whitney was not a supporter of women or a feminist by any measure of the imagination while at Tinder,' according to Josh Metz.

In a text obtained by the Daily Mail, Wolfe referred to a female colleague, who worked at sister company Match.com in the same office as Tinder, as an 'anorexic b***h'.

Not everyone, however, agrees with this concerning portrayal of Wolfe.

For example, Sarah Mick, a former Tinder design vice-president who later helped found Bumble, remembers her being integral to the plans for Tinder, saying the college marketing concept was 'entirely Whitney's idea'.

Wolfe's spokesperson, meanwhile, said she never 'misrepresented her marketing role at Tinder' or the work she did.

And it is true that CEO Sean Rad certainly allowed her at one point to call herself a 'co-founder' as confirmed in texts seen by the Daily Mail – to the consternation of some of Wolfe's colleagues.

As for sexually harassing boyfriend Mateen in the office, Sarah Mick also disputed this, saying she never saw Wolfe do this.

Wolfe's representatives also denied any sexual assault, adding that Justin Mateen's brother Tyler 'should not be treated as reliable nor objective'.

Another text message, allegedly from Wolfe, shows her referring to a woman as an 'anorexic b**ch', which counters the feminist image she has cultivated over the years

The night she apparently answered the door naked to Mateen is also recalled differently by a source close to Wolfe. They say she called Mateen over after hearing noises in the alley by her home, but answered the door clothed and did not let him in.

Tyler Mateen again comes under the spotlight regarding the night when Wolfe is alleged to have taken a knife – her spokesperson denies the knife incident took place, saying Tyler is 'clearly determined to damage our client's reputation'.

They also quoted an unnamed party guest who claimed there was no knife incident.

And according to Wolfe, and as detailed in her 2014 lawsuit, on the night of that party, Justin Mateen called her a 'whore' and another party guest spat in her face, as the unnamed party guest also attested.

There is, though, some certitude regarding the offensive texts from Wolfe – which is surely humiliating for her, garlanded as she is by America's liberal establishment. For these texts all form part of a cache collected by IAC's attorneys during Wolfe's lawsuit against the firm.

Her spokesperson admitted she had used the N-word, but claimed there was a culture of foul language at Tinder she was responding to, and said the texts are 'not indicative of her general use of language'; that Wolfe 'does not hold homophobic or racist views' and 'has never used language with literal homophobic or racist intent'.

Whatever the reason, the use of such language by an individual regarded as a feminist trailblazer will come as a shock to many.

That said, others on the Tinder team are also shown to be foul-mouthed.

Wolfe says she and her now-husband, Texas oil heir Michael Herd (left), became official on Valentines Day 2014. The two married in 2017 

Wolfe's lawyers have their own collection of alleged offensive texts from her co-workers, among them messages from Tinder CEO Sean Rad, and Alexa and Tyler Mateen repeatedly using the N-word.

And as part of her lawsuit against Justin Mateen, Wolfe included screenshots of her ex's alleged repulsive texts, in which he called a man he was jealous of a 'h*mo', referred to Arab men she met as 'middle aged Muslim pigs', and called one woman a 'liberal lying desperate sl*t'.

One sinister message from Mateen to Wolfe said: 'If you threaten me, I will bark back like a psycho so u should know better.'

When approached, Justin Mateen and Sean Rad both declined to comment.

After Wolfe settled with Tinder and its parent company IAC in November 2014, she and Mateen reportedly signed non-disclosure agreements preventing them from disparaging each other. Wolfe also received over $1million and Tinder stock in the settlement, sources close to the case told the Daily Mail.

Today, Wolfe is married to oil and gas heir Michael Herd from Texas, with whom she has two sons. The couple met on a skiing trip in Aspen, Colorado, a spot beloved by celebrities, including the Kardashians.

Certainly, her right-on image has been impeccably burnished. When she took her Bumble firm public, she rang the famous NASDAQ bell with her then one-year-old son on her hip. Interviews see her tell how 'through a decade of building companies to help people to love each other, I've had to learn how to love myself.'

Lily James insists the story of the woman she portrays is an inspirational one, saying: 'She was able to turn a very bad situation, something very negative and toxic that happened in her life, into something powerful.'

Some of Wolfe's former colleagues resolutely beg to differ however, with perhaps the most cutting comment coming from Tinder's former chief technology officer Ryan Ogle.

'She was just not really part of the core team at all,' he said. 'If Whitney was never there, Tinder would be exactly the same.'