In her new book, Solo: A Memoir Of Hope, Hope Solo kisses and tells about a lot of events in her life, including her time on Dancing With The Stars (DWTS). In the book, which this blogger has not yet purchased (but will!) Solo claims that the famed dancer “slapped me hard” in the face. She also says this happened while the cameras were rolling, but the footage is not available.
The public airing of the incident, as well as Hope’s take that Maksim was rough on her, caused a firestorm, with fans of both celebrities coming to their defense.
But, after some research, this blogger did uncover two videos that were publicly aired on Dancing With The Stars that show how their relationship had become strained, and where Mr. Chmerkovskiy was indeed, “rough” with Solo. Both events are in the video above.
But the video also documents how the pair went from presenting the public image of being a dating couple before DWTS started to the points where it was obvious their relationship had cooled, and finally the moment where it looked like Maks was about to lose his cool entirely.
That came during the rehersals with “Team Paso Robles” for the dancing competition that was just three weeks away from the last episode. During one practice, Ricky Lake, Derek Hough, Rob Kardashian, and his partner Cheryl Burke, witnessed Maks and Hope argue as they were dancing. The segment starts with Hope on the floor in a move with him, but he becomes so disgusted with her, he proceeded to try and throw her into a move. Hope’s comment was bleeped out, but it seems like she said “What the fuck.” In the next take, Hope asks Maks to stop being himself.
By then it was clear their was a long-brewing problem.
Sexual Tension
There was an awful lot of sexual tension between Hope and Maks the entire time, and this blogger believed that was because either they had a sexual relationship and Hope stopped it, or they never really had one, but Maks wanted one. In either case, his behavior toward her become more impatient as the show progressed, and eventually seemed to be physical in another way.
Now Maks fans would say that’s just part of his teaching method – he’s got to physically steer his student into the right way to dance. This blogger is not a trained dance instructor, but I’ve watched a lot of DWTS and a number of dancers don’t handle their partners like Maks treated Hope.
When the “rough treatment” video was aired on DWTS, a number of viewers called for Maks’ head. It was a bit much.
So, because of that, this blogger believes Hope when she talks about the contact we didn’t see.
Overall, I’ve always believed Hope came away from Dancing With The Stars traumatized. What seemed like a vacation away from her normal routine slowly transformed into a nightmare of unmet expectations and shabby treatment before a watchful public. Hope’s right about her book being like “counseling” – it was.
Stay tuned.
Bill Carroll