Coco Gauff celebrated her Australian Open victory over Belinda Bencic by making a nod to TikTok, as the app was made unavailable to American users due to a U.S. ban. After the match, Gauff wrote “RIP TikTok USA” on a camera lens with a broken heart. The popular social media app had over 750,000 followers on her account.
Gauff, who was in Australia, told reporters that she couldn’t access TikTok after the match and expressed sadness at the ban. “It’s like an escape,” she said of the app, adding that it’s where she would go to relax before matches.
TikTok was officially unavailable to American users after a U.S. law banned the app, with users receiving a message saying that it wasn’t available right now. The app was initially called Musical.ly and has been popular with users, especially young adults.
Meanwhile, President-elect Trump tweeted on Sunday that he would sign an executive order to extend the time for the ban to take effect and also mentioned the possibility of having a 50% ownership position in a joint venture to allow the app to return to the U.S.
Gauff jokingly said that the ban would force her to be more productive and read books more, but overall, expressed sadness at the loss of a popular platform for many Americans.
