Talk about a power couple! Sue Bird And Megan Rapinoeboth Olympic gold medalists, started dating in 2017.
The couple first met backstage at a photoshoot for the 2016 Rio Olympics. “She was wearing her basketball uniform and she had her hair down,” Rapinoe told NBC in 2021 .
“We crossed paths a bit [paths] and she was like, ‘Oh, hey! Ready for your game? ” Bird added. “I was like, haha…funny.”
The soccer star has revealed she kicked herself at the time for making “such a bad impression”.
“So stupid,” Bird teased. “I walked away like, ‘I thought you were supposed to be cool?’ We joke about it now because she was a total jerk.
Rapinoe came out publicly gay in 2012. In 2020, she said The Sunday review this coming out made her “a better and fuller person”. The Olympian added: “I think whenever you hide even the smallest part of yourself, you are not able to fully capture your potential just in life in general. So I have the felt like it was part of me…mature and allow me to reach my full potential in all aspects of my life.
Bird waited to go out in public until she and Rapinoe started dating in 2017. “I’m gay. Megan is my girlfriend…it’s no secret to people who know me,” she told ESPNW at the time. “I don’t feel like I haven’t lived my life. I think people think if you don’t talk about it, you have to hide it, like it’s that secret. It has never been my case. The Seattle Storm player had been out with her friends and family for years.
The athletes got engaged in October 2020 after three years of dating. In a May 2022 interview with Seattle weatherthe basketball star has revealed why she and Rapinoe still haven’t gotten married.
“It’s funny. It’s more Megan. We’re on Megan’s schedule,” she said. “My schedule is open in the offseason. I have time. WNBA is only in the summer. I’ve got time. We’re basically waiting to see what Megan’s football future holds and then we’ll continue on that. The football schedule is a nightmare. They literally play all year round. If I had to guess one year, I think the World Cup is 2023 for them. It will probably be after. It’s purely based on the schedule. That’s not even what we want. If it were up to us, we would have done it a year ago.
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Scroll down for a timeline of their relationship: