Over the course of her lengthy and dazzling career, goalkeeper and mother of twins,
Hope Solo, has made headlines not just for her on-field accomplishments,
but also for her long history of controversy. From assault charges
to some seriously bad sportsmanship, this is the shady side of Hope Solo.
"I don't think anybody can really perfect the art of goalkeeping. And that's what pushes me."
During the 2007 World Cup semifinal match between the U.S. and Brazil,
veteran goalie Briana Scurry started the game instead of Hope Solo. But Scurry had a bad day,
and Brazil ran away with the game in a 4 to 0 win over the United States. While it was a
clear disappointment for everyone, Solo was unable to keep her frustration under wraps,
and launched a tirade against the coach and her teammate. She said, via ESPN,
"There's no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is,
it's not 2004 anymore. […] It's 2007, and I think you have to live in the present.
And you can't live by big names. You can't live in the past.
It doesn't matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold-medal game in the Olympics three years ago."
Solo's verbal attack earned her a temporary suspension from the team, but even so,
she stood by her comments nearly a year later, claiming she had also been dealing with the recent
passing of her father, who had died three months before the game. She told The New York Times,
"My emotions were in a place I never experienced before, that hurt, pain,
anger. I'm not saying it was right, but I know it was something I had to do at the time."
Solo apparently learned nothing after the incident with Briana Scurry.
Following a playoff loss to the Washington Freedom in 2010, Solo took to social media
and laid down a blistering attack directed at the referees and the league itself. She tweeted:
"It's official, the refs are straight bad. It's clear the league wanted [DC]
in [the] playoffs. I have truly never seen anything like this. It's sad.
I am done playing in a league where the game is no longer in control of the players."
According to The Washington Post, those comments earned her a $2,500 fine,
eight hours of community service, and a one-game suspension from her team, the Atlanta Beat.
"I'm a player that thrives under pressure and I don't wanna lose."
During the 2012 summer Olympics in London, Solo raised eyebrows when she went on the
record about the excessive indulgences inside the walls of Olympic Village. She told ESPN magazine,
"I've seen people having [intercourse] right out in the open. On the grass,
between buildings, people are getting down and dirty."
Solo also admitted to sneaking celebrities and other non-Olympians into the Village
after-hours and to going on live TV still drunk from the night before. She added,
"When we were done partying, we got out of our nice dresses, got back into our stadium coats and,
at 7 a.m. with no sleep, went on the Today show, drunk. Needless to say, we looked like hell."
"Again, the stress."
In her book, Solo: A Memoir of Hope, she also recalled that during a six-month training camp
in California in 2006, she routinely drove to Vegas to party. She wrote,
"[I would] party all night, and come back to training without
having slept. […] And I dated dozens of men, often several at a time."
"This year, personally, has been really tough."
Apparently, Solo can't even get married without
some sort of incident. Early on the morning of her wedding day on November 12th, 2012,
Solo, her brother Marcus, and her then-husband-to-be, former Tampa Bay tight
end Jerramy Stevens, were involved in an alleged drunken altercation during a party at her home.
Around 3 a.m., Marcus called 911 to request medical assistance resulting from a brawl
involving a stun gun. According to a Seattle news outlet, Hope had a bloody elbow, Marcus
had blood on his forehead and knees, and police said Jerramy was hiding in the master bedroom.
Authorities believed Stevens caused Hope's injuries and arrested him for
domestic violence assault, as reported by ABC News. The pair wed later that same day,
and police reportedly dropped the charges when the alleged victims refused to cooperate.
Perhaps the most widely-publicized blunder of Solo's career was her 2014 arrest on domestic
violence charges stemming from a drunken brawl with her nephew and half-sister.
According to ESPN, Solo verbally lashed out at her teenage nephew,
before physically attacking him and her half-sister. Later at the police station,
while cops were trying to book her, Solo became disorderly, even telling an officer,
"You're such a b----. You're scared of me because
you know that if the handcuffs were off, I'd kick your a--."
"I was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of my 17 year old nephew."
In a subsequent interview with Good Morning America, Solo portrayed herself
as the victim of the domestic incident. The case was dismissed in January 2015,
but charges were later reinstated nine months later. By 2018, TMZ reported that
prosecutors once again dropped the case after, quote, "key witnesses stopped cooperating."
It appears that Solo loves to play mind games with players on the opposing team,
especially during penalty kicks. While any goalkeeper tries their best to anticipate
the direction of the kick, Solo admits to sometimes stalling it as long as possible.
In one incident during a 2015 match between the U.S. and Germany,
Solo wasted a ton of time pointing to the referees and her teammates,
then taking a long drink of water and even pouring some down her neck.
The tactic worked: the kicker pulled the shot wide, giving the Americans a shut-out.
Solo attempted the maneuver again during the U.S. team's stunning loss to Sweden at the
Rio de Janiero Olympics in 2016. This time, her move was to call a time out
and request a new pair of gloves, a blatant attempt to ice the penalty kicker,
but the tactic failed and the U.S. lost in a defeat that marked…
"The earliest exit [the U.S. team] had ever made
in a major tournament - spanning back seven World Cups and six Olympics."
The loss clearly had to sting, particularly for the ultra-competitive Solo, who later
responded to Sweden's gameplay in terms that would ultimately derail her career.
At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Solo found herself at the center of two controversies that
angered many soccer fans around the world. First, she became the target of offended Brazilians
after she posted photos on Twitter of her mosquito net and an arsenal of bug repellent,
with the hashtag "zika proof." Brazilian soccer fans responded by chanting "Zika!"
at the top of their lungs, every time she touched the ball.
But Solo made even bigger waves when she displayed poor sportsmanship
following the United States' loss to Sweden. After the match, Solo said,
"[I] think we played a bunch of cowards.
The best team did not win today, I strongly, firmly believe that."
"I wasn't enraged, I wasn't emotional, I wasn't angry,
I just had this conversation with all the journalists in the room after the game."
Those comments immediately sparked outrage from athletes, coaches, and fans around the world,
and the U.S. team responded by terminating Solo's contract and banning her for six months.
Solo was so distraught by the decision that she also quit the Seattle Reign,
the National Women's Soccer League team on which she had played for three years.
On Twitter, Solo explained that her contract termination from the U.S. team was, quote,
"devastating" and that she was also not mentally strong enough to be able to play for the Reign.
In 2012, Solo took to Twitter yet again to take former Olympian turned commentator Brandi
Chastain to task. At issue was Chastain's rather light criticism of Solo's teammate,
Rachel Buehler, during an Olympic match between the United States and Colombia.
Chastain had said during the broadcast of the game,
"As a defender, your responsibilities are to defend […] win the ball, and then keep possession.
And that's something that Rachel Buehler actually needs to improve on, in this tournament."
Solo hit back with a remarkably vicious response, tweeting,
"Lay off commentating about defending and [goalkeeping] until you get more educated,
[Brandi Chastain]. The game has changed from a decade ago."
But Solo didn't stop there. A half hour later,
she fired off a second tweet, seemingly accusing Chastain of dampening the, quote,
"spirit of the Olympics" with her commentary. Chastain's official response was "no comment,"
but Solo continued to drag Chastain a few weeks later when she told the New York Daily News,
"I think analysts and commentators should bring energy and excitement and passion for the game,
and a lot of knowledge, and I think it's important to help build the game,
and I don't think Brandi has that."
"I love soccer. And I always have, and I still do today."
Chastain's single, tempered response to Solo's barrage
of attacks came to light when she told Us Weekly,
"My only comment is I am in London to cover women's soccer for NBC in an honest and objective
fashion, and that is what I have done, and will continue to do for the rest of the tournament."
Solo shocked fans with many revelations in her 2012 memoir.
On top of continuing to publicly drag her former teammates, Solo also called out former
U.S. National Women's Team Coach, Greg Ryan. Not only did she call him essentially incompetent,
she also said he, quote, "pushed her" during the argument over his decision to bench her
during the devastating 2007 World Cup match against Brazil. Ryan denied the accusation.
Within the pages of her book, Solo also accused her Dancing with the Stars partner,
Maksim Chmerkovskiy, of being physically abusive during rehearsal sessions for the show - which
Solo also claims was totally rigged. She alleged that Max smacked her stomach so hard once that it
left a lasting mark. On another occasion, which Solo claims was recorded on video,
she said he slapped her across the face in order to force her into the correct form.
"We didn't have a good time on the show,
it's been highly documented. I don't like her and that's the end of it."
After the alleged slap, Solo claims network management approached her about getting a
new partner, which she declined because she claims she didn't want to, quote,
"end Max's career." She also said the tape of the incident disappeared.
Max denied all the allegations and later told Entertainment Tonight,
"[She's] literally the only person that I could dislike from my past, present or future."
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