Megan Rapinoe Slams ‘Sports Illustrated’ for ‘Lack of Diversity’ in Award Speech

Megan Rapinoe
Getty Images/Bennett Raglin
Warner Todd Huston

U.S. Women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe shamed Sports Illustrated for a “lack of diversity” even as she delivered her acceptance speech for the magazine’s “Sportsperson of the Year” award.

Rapinoe took the podium Monday at the magazine’s award ceremony, but she took them to task for only having had four female persons of the year saying, “Is it truth that I’m only the fourth woman deserving of this award? I don’t think so,” Mediaite reported.

Rapinoe went on scolding SI: “Is it true, so few writers of color deserve to be featured in this publication? No. Is it true, so few women’s voices deserve to be heard and deserve to be read in this publication? I don’t think so.”

Sports Illustrated should not have expected simple gratitude from Rapinoe as she has used award speeches to attack her benefactors several times before.

During her address for her Glamour “Woman of the Year” award, for instance, she went on the attack saying that the praise she has experienced is in direct contrast to the condemnation cast upon former NFL player Colin Kaepernick.

“So while I’m enjoying all of this unprecedented and frankly a little bit uncomfortable attention and personal success, in large part, due to my activism off the field, Colin Kaepernick is still effectively banned,” she said during the November ceremony.

Also, during her acceptance speech for the FIFA Best Player of the Year award, Rapinoe slammed soccer’s male players for not being politically active enough to suit her.

“I feel like if we really want to have meaningful change, what I think is most inspiring would be if everybody other than Raheem Sterling and Koulibaly were as outraged about racism as they were,” she dourly noted. “If everybody else was as outraged about homophobia, as the LGBTQ players, if everybody was as outraged about equal pay, or the lack thereof, or the lack of investment in the women’s game other than just women. That would be the most inspiring thing to me. I feel like that’s my ask of everybody, we have such an incredible opportunity being professional football players.”

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