A viral TikTok influencer thought she had a deal sealed to buy New York Yankees legend Babe Ruth’s old Manhattan apartment. But she struck out swinging.
Former Louisiana State University gymnast and influencer Olivia “Livvy” Dunne, 22, posted a video Tuesday on TikTok to tell her followers that despite submitting an offer for the baseball legend’s $1.59 million New York City apartment, the building voted “not to have me live there.”
Dunne, who boasts some 13 million combined followers on Instagram and TikTok combined, explained that the decision came last-minute, as she was only days away from picking up the co-op’s keys.
Buying a co-op style apartment is slightly different than buying a normal apartment, as each resident becomes a shareholder in the corporation that owns the building, and the rest of the shareholders can approve or deny interested parties.
“I get a call. The co-op board denied me,” Dunne said. “Pretty much the people in the building voted to not have me live there, which is fine.”
She continued, telling her followers how well the sale was going until that point, and that she and her boyfriend, Pittsburgh Pirates star pitcher Paul Skenes, hired a designer to help them decorate the apartment.
“It got to the point where the realtor was so confident, Paul and I went, I got an interior designer because I didn’t want to bring my college furniture to Babe Ruth’s apartment, that would be like, criminal,” she said.
The gymnast was not told why the co-op board denied her, but she acknowledged it could have been for a variety of reasons.
“Honestly, it wasn’t financial. It could have been, for all I know, they could have been Alabama fans and I went to LSU,” she continued. “Maybe they didn’t want a public figure living there, but I was literally supposed to get the keys, and that week they denied me.”
The apartment is still up for sale.
Ruth’s apartment, located in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he lived with his second wife Claire Merritt Ruth and their late adopted daughter Julia Ruth Stevens from 1920 to 1940, first hit the real estate market back in March.
The apartment is located on the seventh floor and includes three bedrooms with two and a half bathrooms.
Ruth, considered one of the best to ever play baseball, went on to hit a career 714 home runs, and held the MLB home run record until 1974, when it was broken by Hank Aaron.
He became known as “The Sultan of Swat” and “The Bambino” as he became the first MLB player to hit 60 home runs in one season.
He is also famous for the so-called “Curse of the Bambino,” as he led the Boston Red Sox to three World Series championships before he was traded to the Yankees, who went on to win four World Series titles with Ruth in the lineup.
Boston, meanwhile, would not win another World Series until 2004.
Ruth died when he was 53 years old from throat cancer.
