US gymnast Olivia Dunne risks being kicked off Instagram after she accidentally flashed a nipple - and the social media site is her biggest source of income

US gymnast Olivia Dunne risked being kicked off of Instagram after appearing to accidentally expose herself on the social media site.

The Louisiana State University acrobat, 21, posted a selfie on her story captioned 'i be missin u nyc' with a tearful smiling emoji - and what appears to be her nipple poking out of her top.

Dunne - also known as Livvy - sailed close to the wind with the accidentally revealing snap shared to her five million followers because Meta-owned Instagram operates a strict policy on nudity.

The post, first reported by a German news website, has disappeared - with Dunne's story now filled with videos and photos of an LSU meet at the Raising Cane's River Centre in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

And while the post has been deleted, the site could yet take action - and it could spell financial trouble for her as the platform is her biggest source of income, earning her six-figure sums for sponsored posts.

Olivia 'Livvy' Dunne has become a global superstar after joining TikTok in 2020 to share videos of herself practicing gymnastics

 She may yet provoke the ire of Instagram after appearing to post an image of herself on her Instagram story accidentally flashing a nipple 

Dunne was in New York at the end of last month on a stopover after a Florida athletics meet - sharing images of herself in front of her Times Square billboard 

Dunne is believed to be one of America's highest paid college athletes from her NIL (name, image and likeness) earnings alone

Last year, she become a Sports Illustrated 'rookie', posing for its legendary swimsuit issue

Dunne will return for the 2024 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue - her second consecutive appearance in the iconic annual edition

She has become a celebrity in her own right after accumulating millions of followers on social media (pictured with Mike Tyson at the ESPY sport awards in Hollywood in 2023)

Dunne has continued to post on Instagram following what appeared to be an accidental nipple flash, sharing images of an athletics meet in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

New Jersey-born Dunne had been in New York on a stopover whilst on her way home to Louisiana after an athletics meet in Florida.

Last month, she posted photographs of herself on Instagram in front of a giant billboard of herself in the city's Times Square, joking: 'I think I know that girl from somewhere.'

But her accidental nipple flash is less of a laughing matter since Instagram has a famously low tolerance of topless female nudity. 

Bild published the image under the headline: 'Does the gymnastics superstar risk expulsion from Instagram?'

'This action can have unpleasant consequences,' the tabloid newspaper warned. 

Instagram, which has a minimum age of 13, does not allow nudity in any form - including nudity that would be 'artistic or creative in nature'.

Campaigners have called for the platform to ease its policy on female nipples, using the hashtag #freethenipple, without success.

However, the site does make exceptions for photographs of breastfeeding, giving birth, 'acts of protest' and nudity as rendered in paintings and sculptures.

This policy, particularly the stance on breastfeeding, has recently been bypassed by shameless OnlyFans models who post topless videos of themselves pretending to breastfeed baby dolls in order to entice new subscribers into signing up for their paid feeds. 

Dunne has previously shared how much she can be paid for sponsored posts on Instagram - disclosing that her biggest payday was in excess of half a million dollars.

She told the Full Send podcast last July: 'I usually don't ever talk about money, but... I would say, six figures. It's just crazy to me.'

Former US national gymnast Dunne began to grow her following online after joining TikTok in 2020 to share videos of her gymnastics practice.

She is now estimated to be worth $3.3million thanks to her NIL (name, image and likeness) deals with brands like Nautica and American Eagle.

Last year, she became a Sports Illustrated 'rookie', appearing in the magazine's iconic swimsuit edition, which she will return for in the 2024 issue.

And she became an internet meme when she met 10-year-old American football player and social media star Madden San Miguel, better known as Baby Gronk.

Content creator Henry De Tolla, known as h00pify online, shared a video of Dunne meeting the promising young player, proclaiming that 'Livvy rizzed him up' in order to convince him to commit to LSU for college. 

'Rizz' - meaning to charm someone, from 'charisma' - was later named word of the year by Oxford University Press. Dunne herself acknowledged the news, sharing an article about it on her Instagram.