The Olivia Dunne-Paul Skenes buzzing romance may have nearly not happened due to an initial lack of an Instagram follow.
During a GQ interview that saw the couple reminisce on how they came to know each other at LSU as athletes, Dunne, 22, said she was hesitant to continue on in her interest of the baseball star because Skenes would not follow back the current 5 million-holding influencer on Instagram.
However, Skenes, also 22, cleared up that it wasn’t an intentional decision.
Rather, he wasn’t actively interested in social media but was aware of Dunne, who he said “everybody knew” at the university.
Still, Dunne said she didn’t quite understand how someone her age would not be actively online.
“I was like, ‘Who is this kid and why won’t he follow me back?'” she recalled in the interview. Yet, she was still interested in the “tall, mysterious man” despite their conflicting schedules with Skenes playing baseball on the weekends and Dunne traveling for gymnastics.
“I could never actually watch him do his thing because every Friday that he would start, we were competing,” she said to GQ.
Over time, Skenes went on to ask out Dunne and their relationship became public in 2023.
Dunne, who is in her fifth year at LSU, has also been supporting Skenes in his early yet successful MLB career.
She was with the Pirates star to celebrate him being named one of the few rookies in history to make the starting lineup at the MLB All-Star game. Dunne also dressed to the nines with Skenes on the night he won the NL Rookie of the Year honor.
Along with the interview, the couple also did a big photoshoot for GQ that published on Wednesday and Skenes already anticipates that he will get poked from his teammates about it.
“It’s uh, I’m gonna get some flak in the locker room, I know that and I’m not looking forward to that,” Skenes said with a smile, as captured by CBS Sports following the Pirates 4-2 win over the Rays on that same day.
“Yeah, I didn’t know what GQ was until the offer came so glad I did it, I think. How’d I look?” he said.
This season across two starts, Skenes has allowed six hits (zero home runs) and two earned runs to make for a 1.46 ERA.