Dancing with the Stars fans could feel some tension between Olympics gold medalist Hope Solo and her DWTS partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy during the 2011 season. But no one expected the bombshell that Solo has dropped in her new memoir.
According to Hope, Maks was physically aggressive with her during the show’s season 13 run to the point that he even slapped the soccer star across her face on one occasion while trying to correct one of her dance moves.
In “Solo: A Memoir of Hope,” Solo writes: “[Maks] manhandled me in rehearsals from the start, pushing me, whacking my stomach, bending my arms roughly.” Solo explained, “I thought that was just how it went – how dancers worked with each other. But it kept getting worse.” She recalled, “One day, Maks was trying to put me in a certain position and hit my stomach so hard with his open palm that I had a red hand print there for the rest of the day.”
Hops says after the altercation, she had the chance to change partners but she decided to stick out with Maks because she did not want his career to end.
Maks probably finds all this a bit strange since the two reportedly have remained friends since their DWTS partnership ended. The two have even gone to dinner several times since the show and Hope tweeted to Maks before the Olympics offering him free tickets to her games.
Chmerkovskiy has not officially responded to these claims, but has since Tweeted, “Always hated hypocrites and liars, but when someone is both and an opportunist, I just feel bad for them. Can’t win at someone’s expense.”
Make added, “ life’s best lessons are the ones that you smile through.”