SI cover model Livvy Dunne says she’s being stalked in airports by ‘middle-aged men’
Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and former LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne said in a TikTok video Friday that she’s fearful she is being stalked in airports.
The 22-year-old, who has built a large social media following, said that whenever she is at an airport, she encounters what she described as “at least 10 middle-aged men” who harass her and attempt to get her autograph.
“There’s a group of autograph seekers who are able to know private flight information,” Dunne said in a statement Saturday to NBC News. “I am not the only female athlete who experiences this. It’s scary because they simply don’t take no for an answer.”
In her video, Dunne said the men have a stack of 40 pictures of her or her magazines and follow her down TSA PreCheck lines to sign the copies. If she does not, the men become hostile and start to yell, Dunne said.
Dunne said the men make a scene and scare other travelers who happen to be nearby. The SI model then shared a video of her crying Friday morning after a red-eye flight, saying a group of men circled her at baggage claim.
The harassment occurs when Dunne is attending big events or going on family vacations, she said in the video. In the caption, she wrote that the men know the “time, place, airport, everything.”
“I know I’m chronically online and I post my life, but I’m talking about like a 20-minute connecting flight through Omaha, Nebraska,” Dunne said. “They would be waiting there. I’m not making content on a connecting flight.”
Dunne also said the same issue happens to another female athlete, track-and-field star Gabby Thomas, who took home gold in the women’s 200 meters at the Paris Olympics.
Thomas posted a video on TikTok in January describing a similar experience to Dunne’s — saying a group of three to six middle-aged men harass her to sign about 40 pictures of herself when she travels through airports.
The men would sometimes appear at Thomas’ gate, she said, “which means they have flight tickets and they get past security and all that.” Thomas added that the men will get “aggressive and hostile” if she refuses to sign the photos.
“I don’t know how they’re getting my flight information and it’s really starting to freak me out,” she said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
