Looks like we have a little bit of jealousy in the influencer world.
If you don’t know who Olivia Dunne is somehow, she’s a star gymnast for LSU, and also one of the biggest TikTok influencers on the planet right now.
The 20-year-old has a whopping 6.6 million followers on TikTok, and 2.7 million followers on Instagram, and is wracking up around $2.5 million in NIL money at LSU.
So, as you can imagine, she probably can’t go anywhere without getting swamped by supporters. Seriously, she probably couldn’t go to Antarctica without getting recognized…
And that remained true when the sixth-ranked LSU Tigers took on the third-ranked Utah Utes in Salt Lake City, Utah on Friday in a gymnastics tournament, the first meet of the season.
The whole gym was absolutely swamped with fans, and a TON of the fans there in support of Dunne, just hoping to get a glimpse of her. And here’s the thing… due to an injury, she wasn’t even in the lineup.
Even so, an army of young boys were on hand, some even holding signs with Dunne’s name on them, as well as cardboard cutouts of her face, and the crowd even started chanting:
“We want Livvy.”
And needless to say, Utah’s home gym turned into a swamp of fans pulling for the LSU star.
Two-time Olympic medalist Kathy Johnson Clarke was also in attendance, where she shared a creepy moment she had with a bunch of Dunne fans:
“I was walking out just behind you, Sam, and they were screaming to me, ‘Are you Livvy’s mom? Are you Livvy’s mom?’ Very disturbing. Creepy, actually.”
And to make matters worse, Utah gymnast Jillian Hoffman’s mother, Jennifer, took to Facebook to share, and admitted that she and her daughter felt disrespected at the event, according to Outkick:
“I am a mother of a Utah gymnast, as we were walking to the car the group swarmed my daughter and her teammate. They literally said to their faces, you are not Livvy but you will do, can we get a picture. (The group) also called my daughter Livvy 2.0. They were so rude and disrespectful. It was very hard for mama bear not to come out.”
(Jillian and her teammate) were approached by a large group of teenage boys, disappointed that LSU had already left the arena and they wouldn’t be getting the photos of their dreams.
They did not know the girls names. They just wanted photos with gymnasts and were disrespectful in the things they were saying. End of story!”
After Hoffman’s mom made the comments, Dunne took to Twitter to address the situation, saying:
“I will always appreciate and love the support from you guys, but if you come to a meet, I want to ask you to please be respectful of the other gymnasts and the gymnastics community as we are just doing our job”
And Dunne’s mother, Katherine, came to her daughter’s defense, saying that she had no control over the fan reaction:
“It is not ok to blame any athlete/celebrity when fan behavior crosses the line. In a sport where all the girls wear nothing but leotards stop suggesting that how Livvy dresses means she deserves this in any way.
Stop shaming girls for the behavior of boys.”
Needless to say, I don’t think this will be going away anytime soon… Livvy has become an absolute superstar in the college sports world:
