Olivia Dunne @Livvy Details Harassment by Male Fans

Olivia Dunne has a lot to be proud of. She’s not only a college athlete, competing in gymnastics for the LSU Tigers, but she’s the most followed college athlete, with more than 13 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms. And, thanks to a recent NCAA decision allowing college athletes to profit off their work, she’s making millions of dollars a year via endorsement deals.

However, as the 20-year-old details in a new profile in Elle, her success and status as a new face of women’s sports has come with a terrifying cost. Dunne tells the magazine that she no longer is able to attend in-person classes at the university because she has faced safety concerns over her social media fame. 

“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 tells Elle.

Those concerns include the opening meet of the gymnast’s 2023 season, held at the University of Utah. According to the magazine, between 100 to 200 men, who they categorized as a “mob of unruly young male” fans, swarmed the meet, chanting during other gymnasts’ routines and even harassing some of the other young women. Other news reports at the time called the incident “scary and disturbing.”

The kicker? Dunne wasn’t even competing that day. The team hired private security to attend meets with them for the rest of the season, but Elle notes that many online declared that Dunne was asking to be harassed because of what she posts online. Dunne said she found that response discouraging. 

“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,” Olivia tells Elle. “It’s hard to handle at times, definitely, because I am just a 20-year-old student. I think people do forget that.”