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Social Media Star, Gymnastics National Champion Livvy Dunne Reacts to Paul Skenes’ Promotion

Originally posted on Pittsburgh Baseball Now
By Danny Demilio | Last updated 5/9/24

The Pittsburgh Pirates are finally promoting pitching prospect Paul Skenes to make his MLB debut on Saturday against the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park.

Skenes, who played his junior collegiate season at LSU after transferring from the Air Force Academy, is in a relationship with social media sensation Livvy Dunne.

Dunne is a member of the LSU gymnastics team that won its first national championship earlier this year.

The 21-year-old Dunne has turned into a viral TikTok star and has eight million followers on the platform. After the baseball world received word of Skenes’ promotion, Dunne took to TikTok to post a video that has nearly 172,000 likes at the time of this post.

Livvy Dunne's reaction to Paul Skenes getting called up to the Pirates pic.twitter.com/cXbBWnqEV3

— MLB (@MLB) May 9, 2024

In addition to TikTok, Dunne has over five million followers on Instagram and over 130,000 Twitter/X followers.

Dunne is one of the NCAA’s highest paid student athletes through multiple NIL deals. Among the companies she has signed with include American Eagle, Body Armor, GrubHub and many others.

Dunne posted a story on Snapchat of her and Skenes traveling from Louisville, Ky., to Pittsburgh ahead of Saturday’s debut. So it looks like Livvy Dunne will be in attendance at PNC Park when the Pirates’ top prospect takes the mound for the first time.

Skenes had been in Louisville as he was scheduled to pitch for the Indianapolis Indians against the Bats on Saturday.

Skenes was drafted by the Pirates with the top pick in last year’s draft. In seven starts with Triple-A Indianapolis this season, the 6-foot-6 right-hander posted a sparkling 0.99 ERA and struck out 45 batters in 27.1 innings pitched.

This article first appeared on Pittsburgh Baseball Now and was syndicated with permission.

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