‘Dancing With The Stars’ Drama: Hope Solo Throws Shade At Guest Judge
Dancing with the Stars is seeing plenty of drama this season, and it seems some of that is due to a growing rivalry between guest judge Maksim Chmerkovskiy and dance contestant Hope Solo. Some might say Chmerkovskiy came to his Dancing with the Stars gig with a little attitude in the first place, which seemed evident when Maksim was asked if he would consider coming back to the show on a more long-term commitment. Chmerkovskiy, who had agreed to appear as a guest judge on Monday night’s episode, asserted that he is still bothered by having been censored throughout his previous Dancing with the Stars stint.
West coast! Tune in to @DancingABC to see me say what needs to be said ? #shotsfired #becauseICan @ABC_Publicity pic.twitter.com/4hMuiyCXPW
— Maksim Chmerkovskiy (@MaksimC) October 13, 2015
People magazine reports that the Dancing With the Stars judge was then asked to play a game of Shag, Marry, or Kill, using stars the dancer-turned-judge had been paired with in previous DWTS seasons. While Chmerkovskiy revealed that he had dated Willa Ford and that the two had been intimate, he confessed that there was really only one partner he would consider marrying: Misty May-Treanor. Things turned a little brutal when Maksim was asked which Dancing with the Stars partner he would kill.
“And I would definitely kill Hope Solo.”
That one statement was enough to reveal that there might be some bad blood between Ms. Solo and Chmerkovskiy, but the Dancing with the Stars judge wouldn’t be stopped there. Maksim clearly felt a need to expound upon his feelings for Hope.
“She’s just a s—– person,” Chmerkovskiy said. “People can be bad or good or whatever. 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.”
As might be expected, Chmerkovskiy’s Dancing with the Stars comments didn’t go unnoticed by Solo, and Hope wasted no time at all in responding to Maskim’s insults. Ms. Solo used images of past Dancing with the Stars scores to give Chmerkovskiy a 3 out of 30 score for his derogatory comments, posting the image to her Twitter account. The image shows DWTS judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and former judge Len Goodman each holding up a score of 1 to total that final score.
— Hope Solo (@hopesolo) October 14, 2015
Ms. Solo has been involved in a long-running feud with Mr. Chmerkovskiy since they were partnered together on Dancing With the Stars in 2012. Following that season, Hope authored an autobiography, Solo: A Memoir of Hope, in which the DWTS contestant alleges that Maksim was aggressive and physical with her in a non-professional manner during rehearsals.
“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 handprint there for the rest of the day,” Solo wrote in an excerpt from the autobiography, according to Us Weekly. “He manhandled me in rehearsals from the start, pushing me, whacking my stomach, bending my arms roughly.”
This isn’t the only conflict in which Hope Solo has found herself embroiled recently. Earlier this month, KIRO 7 reports Ms. Solo found herself sitting in a drunk tank as a result of a night of binge drinking. Hope had induced herself into a drunken rage while visiting the home of her half-sister, Teresa Obert, and 17-year-old nephew, Christian Obert.
Christian asked Hope to leave after it became apparent that Ms. Solo wouldn’t be coaxed out of her anger, and the former Dancing with the Stars contestant responded by assaulting her nephew. Hope continued to punch Christian several times before going after Teresa. Ms. Obert reported that 911 was called and that she regrets matters had to be taken that far, but her only concern was for the safety of her son and herself.
“It wasn’t to get her in trouble,” said Teresa. “It wasn’t for all of this. And if she just would have said sorry and taken the plea and got herself help, this would be over.”
[Featured image: Hope Solo and Maksim Chmerkovskiy courtesy of Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images]
