The football player also claims her pro-dancer partner created drama with judge Len Goodman on live show after learning that the producers would kick them out of the competition.
- Aug 17, 2012
AceShowbiz - There's no doubt that practicing for "Dancing with the Stars" can be so tough, but Hope Solo has just revealed how intense her session with Maksim Chmerkovskiy was. In her new memoir "Solo: A Memoir of Hope", the athlete who competed in the 13th season of the show claims her partner was physical with her during their rehearsals.
"He manhandled me in rehearsals from the start, pushing me, whacking my stomach, bending my arms roughly. I thought that was just how it went - how dancers worked with each other," she says in the book. "But it kept getting worse. 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."
She goes on revealing that Maks was so angry with her at one moment that he slapped her "hard" on the face. She adds that "he was extremely apologetic," and ABC offered her a new partner after the incident, but she declined.
"I didn't want to end Maks' career," she argues, believing that tabloids would spin the story to make her look like a prima dona if she changed partner. The Olympic medalist additionally says the slap incident was caught on camera, but the footage later disappeared.
Hope doesn't only accuse Maks of slapping her, but also claims that the Ukrainian pro dancer created drama during a live show to keep them on the competition. According to the female soccer player, Maks intentionally mocked judge Len Goodman after learning that there had been "some secret memo" circulating that they would be eliminated that week.
Around the same time Hope's accusations were first reported, Maks wrote on his Twitter, "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..." His cryptic message is believed to be a response to Hope's claims.
Kirstie Alley, who was paired with Maks in season 12 and will dance again with him in the "All Stars" edition, has possibly defended her partner as tweeting, "I shall bite thine tongue, lest I get into a girl fight that I would surely lose without a hammer in my hand...;)... ouch! bloody tongue." She defended the show in another tweet which read, "Just wanted to say..DWTS is THE most REAL reality show on TV..what u see is what u get.. It's tough and sparkly and 100|percent| The REAL DEAL!!"
Meanwhile, a so-called insider from the show denied the "secret memo" claim. "There was no memo stating who was going home - simple as that. There's never been anything like that. No one knows who's going home before they even perform," the source told The Clicker. "But to suggest that there was an actual memo going around, detailing who would go? That is absolutely incorrect."
