Who is Olivia Dunne?

Lousiana State University gymnast has come under fire for making money from posting racy photos on Instagram. The 20-year-old gymnast was criticised by Stanford University’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer in an interview with the New York Times for using beauty to earn money.

She called Dunne’s approach a “step back” for female athletes. “I guess sometimes we have this swinging pendulum, where we maybe take two steps forward, and then we take a step back,” she said. “We’re fighting for all the opportunities to compete, to play, to have resources, to have facilities, to have coaches, and all the things that go with Olympic-caliber athletics. This is a step back.”

Who is Olivia Dunne?

Olivia Dunne was born on October 1, 2002, in Westwood, New Jersey. She was raised in Hillsdale, New Jersey, and started training as a gymnast at the age of three. She was a member of the USA national gymnastics team in 2017 and currently competes for LSU in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

Dunne is best known as a social media personality and is one of the most followed NCAA athletes. In an interview with NYT, Dunne revealed that she has a seven-figure net worth from earnings through social media and she is proud of that. However, she has also received a lot of backlash for using apparently sexualised images to make money. 

Earlier, NCAA athletes were not allowed to make money from social media. However, that rule changed in July 2021 when NCAA legalised athletes earning money from name, image and likeness (NIL) deals on social media. Dunne now makes approximately two million a year from the NIL deals.

As of November 2022, Dunne has over 6 million followers on TikTok and a little more than 2 million followers on Instagram. 

She has recently signed contracts with brands like American Eagle Outfitters and Vuori activewear.