Getty Hope Solo and Maksim Chmerkovskiy.
“Dancing With the Stars” alum and retired professional soccer player Hope Solo, 40, was arrested Thursday, March 31, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as first reported by TMZ and confirmed by Solo on Twitter.
Here is what you need to know about the situation:
Solo Was Charged With Driving While Intoxicated & Resisting Arrest
According to TMZ, Solo was arrested in the parking lot of a Walmart in Winston-Salem and taken into custody on the charges of driving while intoxicated, resisting arrest and misdemeanor child abuse. The officers told TMZ that two children were in the car with her at the time.
Solo, whose real name is Hope Amelia Stevens, was taken to the Forsyth County jail for processing where she was booked for impaired driving, resisting arrest and misdemeanor child abuse. According to Fox 46 in North Carolina, Solo was subsequently released.
Solo’s lawyer, Rich Nichols, said in a statement, “On the advice of counsel, Hope can’t speak about this situation, but she wants everyone to know that her kids are her life, that she was released immediately and is now at home with her family, that the story is more sympathetic than the initial charges suggest, and that she looks forward to her opportunity to defend these charges.”
Solo married ex-NFL player Jerramy Stevens in 2012. The couple welcomed twins Vittorio and Lozen on March 4, 2020.
Solo competed on season 13 of “Dancing With the Stars” alongside pro partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy. They finished in fourth place amidst a tumultuous partnership.
In Solo’s 2012 memoir “Solo: A Memoir of Hope,” the soccer star said that Chmerkovskiy was “often nasty” toward her and “manhandled” her in rehearsals, one time “slap[ping] [her] across the face,” according to the New York Daily News.
Chmerkovskiy later said on the “Allegedly with Theo Von & Matthew Cole Weiss” podcast that Solo was “just a s***** person.”
“She’s just a s***** person. People can be bad or good or whatever,” said Chmerkovskiy. “You can have a s***** life growing up. You can have a tough upbringing. You can have history. You can have whatever. But if you are just a bad person, you know what I mean? There’s no excuse for that.”
This Is Not Hope Solo’s First Encounter With Law Enforcement
The retired soccer player was previously arrested in 2014 on domestic violence charges after an altercation with her half-sister Teresa Obert and teenage nephew. According to the Kirkland, Washington, arrest report, Solo yelled at one of the arresting officers, “You’re such a b****. You’re scared of me because you know if the handcuffs were off, I’d kick your a**.”
After that incident, Solo appeared on “Good Morning America” in February 2015 saying that she was the victim in the situation, something Obert disputed in an interview with ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”
“I’m not going to go into all of the details, but it was a scary night. I was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of my 17-year-old nephew, who is 6-foot-9, 280 pounds. I was struck over the head, and concussed pretty severely. It was a very scary night,” Solo told “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts.
Obert told “Outside the Lines” that that was not what happened, saying, “I felt like I had just been kicked in the head. She should have been happy, but then, randomly, she goes on ‘Good Morning America’ and lies. I was very upset. It never had anything to do with size. She has tried to make him feel small his whole life. He’s not aggressive. She’s a trained athlete. She’s strong.”
In a statement to ESPN, Solo’s lawyer said that it was Obert’s son who was the “true aggressor.”
“Police reports and other court documents clearly demonstrate that the alleged victims radically changed their stories on multiple occasions and twice refused to answer questions under oath, despite court orders,” said the lawyer’s statement. “Had the case proceeded to trial and the witnesses been cross-examined under oath subject to the penalty of perjury, the defense would have proven that Teresa’s son, not Hope, was the true aggressor, and that Hope suffered a concussion as a result of her nephew’s unlawful conduct.”
The charges against Solo were later dismissed.
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