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Who is Olivia Julianna? Teen, 19, uses Matt Gaetz's fat-shaming insults to raise $1.3M in abortion funds

Olivia was publicly shamed by Matt after the congressman said women who are fat or ugly don't need to worry about getting pregnant

Olivia Julianna, who got body shamed by Matt Gaetz, turned Matt's attack into a resource to source abortion funds. The 19-year-old has succesfully raised more than $1.3 million in under 72 hours after Matt tweeted a photo of Olivia, with caption “Dander raised.” The Republican congressman from Florida had also retweeted an interview in which he was asked if he was calling women who attend abortion rallies “ugly and overweight.” He replied, “Yes.”

It all started on July 24 at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, when Matt said, “Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb! These people are odious from the inside out. They're like 5′ 2″, 350 pounds, and they're like, 'Give me my abortions or I'll get up and march and protest!” This outburst was noticed by Olivia, who took to Twitter to bash Matt's statements, saying, “It has come to my attention that Matt Gaetz — alleged pedophile — has said that it’s always the ‘odious... 5’2” 350 pound” women that ‘nobody wants to impregnate’ who rally for abortion. I’m actually 5’11”. 6’4” in heels. I wear them so the small men like you are reminded of your place.”

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Hours later, Matt, who was not tagged in Olivia’s tweet, retweeted an article in which he shared a screenshot of Olivia’s profile picture with caption that read “Dander raised.”

To which, she responded by saying, "In honor of Matt Gaetz publicly body shaming me, I’ll be fundraising for the @genzforchange abortion fund. The Gen-Z for Choice fund splits donations across states where services are most needed."

Olivia raises over $1.3M in abortion funds

The 'Gen-Z for Choice' fund has raised over $1.3M at the time of this article's publication. When Olivia reached her $500k target, she tweeted, "Well @mattgaetz, I have to hand it to you. I didn’t think you cared about us abortion rights activists, but your spotlight on me has helped raise $50K for abortion funds in the last 24 hours! So I made you a special thank you card It almost feels like #MattGaetzIsProAbortion."

The Reid Out interview put Olivia Julianna's fund raising into the spotlight and the activist thanked them when funds crossed $1.1 million as more donations kept piling in. “Thank you @JoyAnnReid!” she wrote. “We raised $1.1 million in under 72 hours because of a rude comment. Imagine what we can do with a solid year of planning to elect democrats across the country," she tweeted on July 29.

Who is Olivia Julianna?

Julianna is the political strategy specialist with Gen-Z for Change. The verified Instagram bio of the the Texas teen, who has around 39.6k followers, describes her as "Greg Abbott’s arch enemy, 19 year old activist fighting against the TX GOP." Since the campaign was launched, the teen has received an outpouring of media coverage.