Olivia ‘Livvy’ Dunne is the new face of college athletics. The 20-year-old gymnast has become an online sensation, with over seven million followers on TikTok and over four million on Instagram, she is benefiting from the recent decision that allows college athletes to make money from their name, image, and likeness. But there is a dark side to this fame.
Dunne studies at LSU where she competes on the gymnastics team as well. In recent years she has become the most followed college athlete on social media and has turned that following into profit, becoming the second highest college-earning athlete according to On3’s NIL 100 List of top high school and college annual-earning projections. But this following hasn’t remained purely in the confines of the internet.
When it comes to the darker side of this fame, female college athletes, like Dunne, are more at risk than male college athletes. Dunne has a strong male following on her social media accounts, and whilst many of them are fairly benign, some are extremely inappropriate. The love for Dunne is so strong that men have been turning up to some of her events, with one particular incident threatening her, as well as other gymnasts’ safety.
At the LSU open meet for 2023, which was held at the University of Utah, a group of male Livvy fans (estimated to have been between 100 to 200 strong) turned up. They disrupted the other gymnast’s performances and harassed them, with one gymnast told that, though she wasn’t Olivia, she would do. Dunne was unaware of the commotion at the time, only finding out about it on social media later on. She asked her fans to be respectful and to let the athletes do their job.
Since then, Dunne has stopped attending classes in person as a result of safety concerns. In an interview with Elle, she said, “There were some scares in the past, and I just want to be as careful as possible. I don’t want people to know my daily schedule and where I am.” She knows that she garners attention whilst walking around on campus, but that most of the students have gotten used to her presence at this point. Many, of course, use the tired age-old excuse of “what do you expect? Look at what you’re wearing,” but Dunne is not going to let that stand.
“It’s not a girl’s responsibility how a man looks at her or how he acts, especially when you’re doing your sport and that’s your uniform. I can’t help the way I look, and I’m going to post what I feel comfortable with. It’s hard to handle at times, definitely, because I am just a 20-year-old student. I think people do forget that.”
Since the incident, LSU hired a private security firm to accompany the team and there have been no further issues since then. Dunne isn’t just using her fame to benefit herself, she understands there is a huge disparity between male and female athletes after they leave college, especially for gymnasts who age out of the sport in their early twenties. To battle this, she has created the Livvy Fund to help connect more college-age female athletes to connect to brand deals and endorsements.
