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Olivia Dunne is the most famous female college athlete on the planet these days.
In fact, Dunne may well be the most famous college athlete regardless of gender.
The LSU gymnast has over 4.3 million followers on Instagram and a whopping 7.7 million on her TikTok.
But that level of fame isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be.
Dunne recently revealed that she can no longer attend class in person at LSU due to safety reasons.
“Still, she doesn’t attend classes in person “for safety reasons,” she said in an interview with Elle magazine. “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.”
And while that may sound ridiculous, it’s not exactly unfounded.
At LSU’s first meet of the 2023 season at the University of Utah, a mob young male fans chanted wildly during the competition, disrupting the performance of other gymnasts. They also swarmed the team bus after the event. There were also reports of gymnasts being harassed as the estimated 100 to 200 men demanded to see Livvy; one was told she wasn’t Dunne but “she will do.”
“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,” Dunne tweeted after the incident.
But she hasn’t slowed down the social media use.
Dunne went viral yet again on Monday night with an Instagram post from New York City and the site of a house from the TV series Gossip Girl.
“Gossip girl here,” Dunne captioned the post, which has nearly 500,000 likes in under a day.
Talk about a superstar…