Hope Solo, the former goalie for the US Women’s National Team, was arrested for alleged DWI in North Carolina on Thursday.
Police told TMZ that Solo, 40, was taken into custody in the parking lot of a Walmart in Winston-Salem, and processed in the Forsyth County jail.
Solo allegedly had two young kids in the car at the time. She is married to former NFL tight end Jerramy Stevens and they have 2-year-old twins. It was not immediately clear if it was the twins who were in the car with her at the time, but TMZ says it was “likely” the case.
“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 chargers,” her lawyer, Rich Nichols, said in a statement that Solo tweeted out.
In addition to DWI, Solo is charged with resisting arrest and misdemeanor child abuse.
In 2014, Solo was arrested for alleged domestic violence against her sister and nephew while intoxicated. Those charges were dropped in 2018 after the city of Kirkland, Wash., ruled that the incident was “unlikely to recur.”
Solo was the goalie for two USWNT Olympic gold medals and one World Cup.
She recently spoke about her experience on the USWNT with former teammate Carli Lloyd, who had said she “hated” the culture at the end of her tenure on the team.
“When I got fired in 2016 … every time I left for camp my husband Jerramy [Stevens] hated to see me sad,” Solo said. “I didn’t want to go to the social aspect of camp. I wanted to train my ass off.
“I wanted to work my butt off. I wanted to play games. But I didn’t want to be around everybody and the culture of the team. It was really difficult. I don’t think people understand how difficult emotionally and mentally that is. It’s tough. I just wanted to be a professional athlete. I wanted to be cutthroat and I wanted to win. But you still have to play the political and social game sometimes. That’s hard for an introvert like myself. It was really difficult.”
Solo also recently sounded off about the USWNT’s equal pay settlement with US Soccer.
“This settlement is not a ‘huge win.’ It’s heartbreaking and infuriating,” Solo wrote in her lengthy Instagram post, which also featured a photo of a quote from the joint statement released by the USWNT and US Soccer Federation. “A ‘promise’ of equal pay from the Federation and backpay for a select group of players isn’t equal pay and it’s not what this fight was about.
“Read the fine print. ‘Contingent upon the negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement.’ It doesn’t exist yet and is not guaranteed. If the players had ever been successful in negotiating an equal CBA, there would’ve been no reason to sue the Federation in the first place.”