Hope Solo accuses ‘Dancing with the Stars’ partner of slapping her

Hope Solo accuses ‘Dancing with the Stars’ partner of slapping herWashington, Aug 18 : Hope Solo has accused her `Dancing with the Stars' partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy of being too rough with her during rehearsals.

The 31-year-old goalkeeper wrote in her book `Solo: A Memoir of Hope,' that the professional dancer "manhandled" her and once slapped her across the face during her time on the show last fall.

"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. I was tough. I could take it," CBS News quoted her as writing in the book.

"But it kept getting worse," she continued. "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 wrote.

During a rehearsal for the Halloween-themed episode, she wrote, Chmerkovskiy was got so angry with her that he slapped her.

"He wanted my head in a specific position. To achieve that, he slapped me across the face. Hard."

Solo said Chmerkovskiy was "extremely apologetic" after the incident and that ABC offered her a new partner, but she declined.

She said she "didn't want to end Maks' career" and feared she'd come off looking like a "prima donna." (ANI)