- Paul Skenes, 23, is the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner, currently dominating the 2026 World Baseball Classic for Team USA, and his girlfriend, Livvy Dunne, is right there in the stands cheering him on
- The couple met at LSU in 2023 when Skenes refused to follow Dunne back on Instagram, and their first date involved ice cream he did not even like
- Skenes is earning just $1.085 million in 2026 despite being widely considered the best pitcher in baseball, while experts project he could eventually command $500 million on the open market
There is a very specific kind of chaos that happens when the best pitcher in baseball is dating one of the most followed athletes on the internet. Every at-bat becomes a content moment. Every trip to the stadium becomes a fashion event. And every time someone searches for Paul Skenes, they end up spending forty-five minutes reading about Livvy Dunne’s sister Julianna instead. Welcome to the most talked-about couple in American sports right now.
Right now, Skenes is mid-tournament at the 2026 World Baseball Classic, doing what he does best, which is making professional hitters look completely lost at the plate. In the 2025 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Paul Skenes made 32 starts and went 10-10 with a 1.97 ERA. And somewhere in the stands, Livvy Dunne is watching, posting, and collectively breaking the internet one Instagram story at a time.
But before we get to the salary scandal and the sister situation, let us start at the beginning. Because the origin story of this relationship is genuinely one of the better ones in recent sports history.
The Instagram Snub That Almost Ended Everything Before It Started
The two began dating in 2023, and Dunne revealed in April 2025 that it nearly never happened at all. The reason? Paul Skenes would not follow her back on Instagram.
Skenes was “shy” at first and did not follow Dunne back on Instagram because of his strict no-Instagram, no-distractions athlete habits. Which, if you know anything about Livvy Dunne’s social media presence, is almost comically ironic. This is a woman with tens of millions of followers across platforms. She followed him. He did not follow back. And she decided to pursue him anyway.
Dunne would see him around campus and wondered who “this tall, mysterious man that never smiles” was. Skenes, for his part, knew exactly who she was. He admitted that everybody knew who Dunne was at the time, but she genuinely did not know much about him.
Their worlds first collided properly through mutual friends. Skenes’ best friend at LSU was dating Dunne’s roommate, fellow LSU gymnast Elena Marenas, which led to the two getting to know each other casually. “Just a small-world type of thing,” Skenes later said.
And then came the first date. Skenes eventually asked her out for ice cream, despite not particularly liking the treat, simply because she needed to have “something in her hand while we’re talking.” That was it for Dunne, who said that after their first two dates she realised, “Oh, I really like him.” The man disliked ice cream and bought it anyway just to spend time with her. Honestly, that is probably the most romantic thing in this entire article.
Livvy’s Sister Julianna: The Secret Weapon Behind the Brand
People searching “Abigail Dunne” and “Julianna Dunne” alongside Livvy’s name are usually looking for the same person, just under different names. There is no Abigail. The sister is Julianna, known online as Julz.
Julianna Dunne, whose nickname is Julz, was born on February 4, 2001, making her about 24 years old and the older of the two sisters. While Livvy became one of the most recognised faces in college athletics, Julz quietly became the engine running the whole operation from behind the camera.
Livvy told Elle that Julz was “sometimes the brains behind the operation” of her social media presence. While Livvy took classes and trained during the day, by night she was creating content, and she had her sister to help with the work. Together, they would come up with new ideas before filming.
Julz is an LSU graduate and works closely with Livvy as her manager and content editor. Their mother’s side of the story adds another layer. The Dunne family grew up in Hillsdale, New Jersey, and both daughters were raised in a close-knit household that valued discipline and encouragement. Their father, David, is a former Division I football player who now works as a corporate lawyer, and their mother, Katherine, is a former gymnast who played a significant role in Livvy’s early training.
So the next time you see a Livvy Dunne video that lands perfectly, cuts at exactly the right moment, and racks up twelve million views before lunchtime, there is a very good chance Julianna had something to do with it.
The Salary Scandal That Has Baseball Fans Absolutely Livid
Here is the part of the Paul Skenes story that makes people genuinely angry, and understandably so.
Skenes will earn a salary of $1.085 million in 2026, marking his third and final season of pre-arbitration, where most MLB teams pay their players near the league minimum of $780,000. For context, that is less than some backup catchers earn in a month. And this is the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner. The best pitcher in baseball. The man is currently making World Baseball Classic hitters look like they have never seen a fastball before.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have made it a record figure, as it makes Skenes just the third player in MLB history to earn seven figures in a pre-arbitration season. They clearly think they deserve a pat on the back for this. The rest of baseball is slightly less convinced.
Spotrac predicts that Skenes may rake in around $50 million over the next four seasons through incentives and arbitration, and projects a potential extension at $171.5 million for the next seven seasons. That, though, pales in comparison to the $500 million that ESPN’s Jeff Passan predicts Skenes could receive once he reaches free agency.
The Pirates, a team ranked 26th in MLB payroll, are sitting on a half-billion-dollar asset and paying him roughly what a mid-range software developer earns. The clock is ticking loudly, and absolutely everyone in Pittsburgh knows it.
Dunne, meanwhile, told PEOPLE that she simply makes time to be present. “He makes time to come to my events. I make time to go watch him pitch. I try to make every start I can.” For a couple navigating one of sport’s most demanding schedules alongside one of social media’s most demanding careers, that simplicity seems to be exactly what works.
Dunne also revealed at the Fanatics Super Bowl party that Skenes threw his fastest pitch of the day during a batting practice session against her, prompting her to joke: “Is this personal?” The man throws 102 miles per hour and still somehow comes across as charming. Some people really do have it all.
What makes Paul Skenes and Livvy Dunne genuinely compelling as a couple is not the viral moments or the brand deals or the eye-watering financial projections. It is the ice cream story. The Instagram snub. The fact that she chased a tall, brooding athlete who would not follow her back, and he bought a dessert he hated just to have an excuse to talk to her. In a world that runs on performance and optics, that origin story feels quietly, unexpectedly real.
