Paige Spiranac Applauds Olivia Dunne’s Impact on Women in Sports

The SI Swimsuit models and athletes sang one another’s praises during magazine launch events.

Paige Spiranac and Olivia Dunne / Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images

Before they even met for the first time at SI Swimsuit’s 60th anniversary launch event in New York City last month, Paige Spiranac and Olivia Dunne had forged an online friendship. Both women are athletes, social media superstars and models with plenty of respect for one another.

When we caught up with the duo at the magazine’s launch events at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla., Dunne, 21, told us about how much she’s appreciated Spiranac, 31, publicly sticking up for her in the past. And in a mutual show of adoration, Spiranac gushed about how the LSU gymnast has handled public scrutiny at a young age “with so much grace.”

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Spiranac, a former Division I golfer and current golf instructor, stated that she looks up to Dunne and is encouraged by the impact the 2024 SI Swimsuit rookie, who is the highest-paid female NCAA athlete in NIL history, has had on women’s sports.

“The most important thing [for me and my career] is seeing growth in the next generation,” Spiranac explains. “And so when I first started doing this, social media was still fairly new and there was no building really a brand online, it was just a traditional [career] path. And so I didn’t really know what I wanted out of this. But then to see someone like Livvy be even more successful and be able to capitalize at even a younger age, it just shows that it’s moving in the right direction for women, for women in sports. And it’s been really cool to see her growth and her development and the rest of her career [unfold] because I know she’s going to be unstoppable.”

The powerhouse women have a combined 18.7 million plus followers on Instagram and TikTok alone, and use their platforms to elevate their respective sports.