Livvy Dunne has lifted the lid on her bitter feud with the New York Times, almost three years after the outlet suggested she uses her sexuality to make money.
Dunne, 22, was left furious in November 2022 when The Times published a profile on the then-LSU gymnast with a headline that read: ‘New Endorsements for College Athletes Resurface an Old Concern: Sex Sells’.
And years later, the social media sensation opened up on the fury that the article triggered in her, before admitting that the negative experience opened doors for her.
Sitting down with WWE’s Steph McMahon on her ‘What’s Your Story?’ podcast, Dunne, who is in a relationship with MLB pitcher Paul Skenes, revealed the role the article played in clinching her first-ever Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover.
‘It all started because of a hit piece [that] the New York Times wrote about me,’ she began when asked about her relationship with Sports Illustrated.
‘They came to our gymnastics facility at LSU, took pictures of me. They said, “wear your team-issued attire, put on a leotard,” and they took a picture of me standing in front of the beam like any gymnast would and then they blew it up on the screen and put the headline, “Sex Sells”.
Livvy Dunne has lifted the lid on her bitter feud with the New York Times three years later
The former gymnast was asked about Sports Illustrated cover when she turned to the Times
Dunne was previously frustrated with how the New York Times had profiled her in 2022
‘Okay well, you just came into the facility and took pictures of me in our team-issued attire and blew it up on a screen. So I was like, well this is crazy. And there was obviously a lot of backlash to the New York Times because of that.
‘I decided I was going to put that same picture that they posted and captioned “Sex Sells” on my Instagram story and write “@ The New York Times, is this too much?” Because, come on, you know what you’re doing. You just put a picture of me in a leotard for clicks and then caption it “Sex Sells.”
‘And then people loved that. They were like this is so great because no, it’s not too much. You’re in your team-issued attire, which is a leotard for gymnasts.” […] There was a lot of positive feedback from that.
‘So, Sports Illustrated reached out to my agent. I was so excited about that. That was always a dream of mine. There’s some legends and some amazing athletes that have been in Sports Illustrated.’
In May, Dunne, who called time on her athletics career last month, was named as one of four cover stars for SI Swimsuit’s 2025 edition after appearing in two previous issues.
Her first cover shoot with the magazine, which was carried out in Bermuda, showed Dunne posing in tropical conditions while wearing a collection of skimpy bikinis.
The main cover shot captured her kneeling in the water in a zebra-print bikini top and green bottoms while staring directly at the camera.
And Dunne confided to McMahon that she captured that particular shot while kneeling on a fractured kneecap – an injury that heartbreakingly cut her fifth and final season with LSU short.
The social media sensation performed the splits on the Sports Illustrated catwalk
Dunne called time on her gymnastics career in April after her fifth and final season at LSU
But despite soldiering through injury, Dunne gushed over the experience, insisting that shoot left her feeling confident.
In five years at LSU, Dunne became the most-followed and highest-paid female college athlete with over 13 million combined TikTok and Instagram followers and a NIL (name, image and likeness) valuation of $4.1million.
However, in April her gymnastics career finally came to an end as she bid an emotional farewell to the Tigers.
After walking away from the sport, Dunne now has some free time on her hands as she works out what the next chapter will bring.
