Hope Solo Speaks Out on 'Worst Night of My Life'

Retired soccer goalkeeper says drinking that led to DUI spurred partly from postpartum depression
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 20, 2022 7:00 AM CDT
Hope Solo Speaks Out on 'Worst Night of My Life'
Hope Solo takes the ball during a women's soccer game at the Rio Olympics against New Zealand on Aug. 3, 2016, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.   (AP Photo/Eugenio Savio, File)

Nearly a month after pleading guilty to charges of driving while impaired in North Carolina in late March, while her twin toddlers were in the car, Hope Solo is talking publicly about what happened. Making an appearance this week on her Hope Solo Speaks podcast, the 41-year-old former soccer goalkeeper spoke on living through her arrest—"the worst night of my life"—and also how she's been dealing with the aftermath, reports Yahoo Life. "I let alcohol get the better of me in this moment on this god-awful day, and I will suffer the consequences for some time," she said, adding that "I was mother-shamed around the world" for the incident.

Solo added she's not allowed to drive for a year as a result of her DWI—a consequence she calls a "massive inconvenience" for her family and a "loss of independence" for herself—and that her 30 days in rehab was also hard for her family, as it put all of the burden at home on husband Jerramy Stevens. "This didn't make it easy for me to go to bed at night," she said. "Yes, I finally got to read some books and meditate and work on myself, but my heart broke for my family."

So what led her to the point where she was driving drunk with her kids in tow? Solo said that after she and her family moved to a rural part of North Carolina, and then the pandemic kicked in, she became increasingly isolated and didn't have the support she needed as she tried to adjust to new motherhood, per USA Today. She believes she was suffering from postpartum depression and should've sought more assistance. "I didn't think I needed help," she said. "And I certainly wasn't going to ask for it." She noted that her "sense of strength and pride became my two worst enemies," adding, "I thought that I could white-knuckle it." (More Hope Solo stories.)

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