Olivia Dunne Begins NYC Apartment Hunt Again—After Her $1.6 Million All-Cash Offer on Babe Ruth’s Apartment Was Rejected

Star gymnast Olivia Dunne has revealed she is once again looking for her dream home in New York City—after being denied from living in baseball legend Babe Ruth’s former apartment, despite putting in an all-cash offer.

The 22-year-old Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model—who boasts 8 million followers on the video-sharing platform—rose to online stardom as a New Jersey high schooler, before finding further fame as a member of the LSU Tigers gymnastics team between 2021 and 2024.

However, her celebrity standing did little to help her win over the board of the luxurious New York City co-op where Ruth’s “iconic” former apartment is located.

Now, weeks after being rejected Dunne has taken to TikTok to reveal that she was once again “looking for an apartment.”

In the viral video, Dunne could be seen skipping down the streets of the Big Apple while eerie music played in the background.

“What the NYC realtor’s hear when I’m back in NYC looking for an apartment,” the text overlay read.

She captioned the video, “It isn’t Babe Ruth’s apartment but it’ll do.”

Her revelation that she is once again browsing the market comes just weeks after she confessed that she was rejected.

“Guys, I’m so upset. A few months ago, I decided I was going to make my first real estate purchase, which is so exciting, and I was going to get an apartment in New York City. But the gag was, it was Babe Ruth’s apartment,” she said in a video at the time.

“So naturally, I was telling everybody. I was going to buy it and pay with cash, I wanted this apartment bad,” she added of the three-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom abode.

The college graduate, who is dating MLB player Paul Skenes, admitted that she went into the co-op board approval process with complete confidence, confessing that she and her partner had already hired an interior designer to help them decorate the opulent space.

“It got to the point where the realtor was so confident, Paul and I went and I got an interior designer because I didn’t want to bring my college furniture to Babe Ruth’s apartment, that would be criminal,” she explained.

“The week that I am supposed to get my keys to brand new apartment, I get a call and the co-op board denied me. So pretty much, the people in the building voted to not have me live there, which is fine.”

Dunne made clear that the rejection had nothing to do with her financials—noting that she had made a cash offer on the space in the hopes of improving her odds of it being accepted by the seller—before joking that it could well have to do with her history as an LSU athlete.

“It wasn’t financial, for all I know they could have been Alabama fans and I went to LSU,” she said.

The athlete then urged her followers to avoid apartments in co-op buildings, which have a notoriously tricky approval process that often sees prospective buyers being forced to interview with members of a board, who have the ability to immediately deny access to anyone who they feel is unsuitable for the building.

In Dunne’s case, she conceded that the board’s decision may well have been related to her celebrity status, however she said that did little to lessen the sting of the rejection.

“Maybe they didn’t want a public figure living there, but I was literally about to get my keys and then they denied me. It was just iconic, it was literally Babe Ruth’s apartment,” she went on. “But long story short, don’t try to live in a co-op, you might get denied and you won’t get Babe Ruth’s apartment.”

Co-op buildings are housing units that are owned and controlled jointly by a group of individuals who typically own shares in the housing community—with each unit representing a certain portion of those shares.

The properties are, more often than not, run like a nonprofit corporation, complete with a board of directors that makes decisions on the day-to-day running and maintenance of the building, including the use of residents’ monthly fees.

Co-op owners do not actually own their unit, but instead buy shares of the co-op, relative to the size and desirability of their apartment space.

Although not the norm across much of the U.S., co-op buildings are traditionally much more common place in densely populated cities, like New York, Washington, D.C.

Ruth’s former dwelling is located in a 52-unit building on New York’s Upper West Side, which is described as having “fabulous character.”

The New York Yankees legend, whose full name was George Herman Babe Ruth Jr., lived in the home between 1920 and 1940 with his wife, Claire Merritt Ruth, and their adopted daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens.

While the iconic New York family lived there, the home was a large 12-room unit, which has since been divided into two apartments.

The dwelling features soaring ceilings and rich wood flooring that accentuate its expansive space.

The living area features built-in storage and a large window.

It leads into a chic dining area that boasts ample space for a large dining table and more built-storage space.