Olivia Dunne Spills the Details About How She and Paul Skenes First Met

The SI Swimsuit rookie opened up about meeting her boyfriend on a new episode of Flau’jae Johnson’s podcast.

Paul Skenes and Olivia Dunne / Rob Tringali/Getty Images

After a little over a year of dating, Olivia Dunne and Paul Skenes have already established themselves as one of the more popular athlete couples on the market. Rumors of a relationship started circulating back in June 2023, when Dunne posted a TikTok wearing a Skenes jersey and cheering him on from the stands at an LSU baseball game. Ever since, the 2024 SI Swimsuit rookie and social media star has been open about their relationship on her channels, as she has shared numerous photos of the pair and various other details about their relationship.

But until she joined Flau’jae Johnson on a recent episode of the LSU basketball player’s podcast, Best of Both Worlds with Flau’jae, the 21-year-old had yet to divulge exactly how she met Skenes. Of course, everyone knew they met through their respective roommates while playing sports at LSU—Dunne a member of the 2024 National Championship-winning gymnastics squad, and Skenes a pitcher for the 2023 National Championship-winning baseball team. But, until her guest appearance on the podcast, it wasn’t clear exactly what drew them together.

Paul Skenes and Olivia Dunne / Cooper Neill/Getty Images

According to the gymnast, it all happened naturally. “I would kind of see him around, and I was like, ‘Who is this tall guy—this tall, mysterious man?’” she said of the days before meeting Skenes. “I literally had no clue who he was, but I would just see him around.”

It wasn’t until baseball season that she discovered who he was. She was sitting in the stands of an LSU baseball game with her teammates when she caught a glimpse of him in the dugout. “I was like, ‘There he is ... He’s cute. I like that side profile,’” she recalled.

Dunne followed him on Instagram soon after, they ended up meeting up for an ice cream date, and the rest was history.

Though the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher is known now, in part, for his thick mustache, back when he and Dunne met, he wasn’t sporting one. “He didn’t even have a mustache yet,” she told Johnson. “He wasn’t even the Paul Skenes that we all know and love yet.”

Now, the pair are a year or so into their successful relationship. It really was, as Johnson called it, an “LSU love story.” The happy couple got their start on campus in Baton Rouge, and have since grown into the power duo that we all know and appreciate today.