They’re world-class Olympians, and they’re head over heels in love!
Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird have been a power couple for years now, and their love story is just as inspiring as their incredible athletic achievements.
The U.S. women’s soccer star, 38, and the WNBA legend, 42, hit it off at the 2016 Rio Olympics and have been pretty much inseparable since.
Rapinoe and Bird have been open about their love for each other over the years, and frequently gush about each other in interviews.
Rapinoe once joked that she loved being a WAG (a nickname for the wives and girlfriends of professional athletes) to her star basketball player partner.
“I love being a WAG and a superfan,” Rapinoe told People in 2019. “I think it’s AMAZING and to be able to, you know, watch your partner exceed and excel and be exactly who they are in a public forum. That’s pretty special.”
She added that neither of them are “jealous or weird about each other’s careers,” but that they simply “support each other.”
Here’s what to know about Rapinoe and Bird’s relationship.
They first met at an Olympics photo shoot
Rapinoe and Bird met before the 2016 Rio Olympics, when they were both posing for promotional pictures wearing their uniforms and full makeup, according to a 2021 GQ profile.
As Rapinoe walked by, she joked to Bird, “Are you getting ready for a game?”
Rapinoe said she regretted her corny quip soon after.
“I walked away like, ‘You’re an idiot,’” she told GQ.
Sparks soon began to fly, but their romance didn't begin right away
Their paths crossed again when Rapinoe attended a gold medal victory party for Bird’s Olympic team.
They gravitated toward each other all evening, and before long, they were talking on the phone regularly.
Bird recalled to GQ that she would often stay up late chatting with Rapinoe, then grab a few hours of sleep, “only to wake up as soon as possible to get back on the phone."
“We were breaking all the athlete rules of schedule,” she said. “If I got four hours of sleep, I would consider myself lucky.”
Rapinoe sensed Bird was the one from their very first date
While the pair had been talking for a while, it took time before they took things to the next level.
After Rapinoe broke things off with her then-fiancée, she and Bird went on their first official date.
“I was like, ‘Okay, don’t be a cliché lesbian, where you love this person when you first meet them,’” Rapinoe told GQ in 2021. “But it was just immediately like, ‘Oh, this is home.’”
Bird came out when she and Rapinoe went public with their relationship
When Rapinoe and Bird publicly shared they were dating, it also marked Bird’s coming out.
Bird had been open about her sexuality with family and friends, but Rapinoe encouraged her to come out publicly in 2017.
“What Megan helped me understand was that, yes, what I was already doing was great, living authentically,” Bird told Time magazine in 2021. “But it was important to say it, because the more people that come out, that’s where you get to the point where nobody has to come out. Where you can just live. And it’s not a story.”
Bird came out in a 2017 ESPN story, revealing that Rapinoe was her girlfriend.
“It’s happening when it’s happening because that’s what feels right,” Bird told ESPN. “So even though I understand there are people who think I should have done it sooner, it wasn’t right for me at the time. I have to be true to that. It’s my journey.”
Rapinoe had come out publicly five years earlier in an interview with Out magazine.
Bird and Rapinoe become the first same-sex couple ever featured in ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue
The pair made history as the first openly gay couple to be featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue, in 2018.
“I think neither of us really wants to just do things and be like, ‘We’re the gay couple,’” Rapinoe told ESPN at the time. “But to have this really unique vehicle to actually do that, to celebrate who we are in our sport, but also the fact that we’ll be the first gay couple, is pretty special.”
She added that it’s “pretty amazing to think about, especially in the times we’re in. Just think of how far we’ve come, but also the current climate and defiance in the face of that. Not only are we female athletes, but we’re dating as well. It’s kind of badass.”
Rapinoe proposed to Bird on bended knee at a swimming pool
Rapinoe popped the question in 2020 while they were in Antigua with friends celebrating Bird’s 40th birthday.
As the couple recalled to GQ, Bird was in the water in an infinity pool and Rapinoe was lying on the edge.
Suddenly, something felt different.
“There was a look in her eye,” Bird recalled of the moment. “I could just sense it. I knew what was happening.”
Rapinoe proposed using one of the gold rings from her own hand, according to GQ.
Bird shared a photo of the sweet moment without a caption on Instagram.
They are each other’s biggest supporters
Bird and Rapinoe always cheer each other on, and Rapinoe has called herself Bird’s biggest “superfan.”
“We are huge fans of each other. I have become, like, a Seattle Storm number one superfan, of course,” Rapinoe told People in 2019. “I think it is just the understanding of what we have to go through and the appreciation of, you know, each other’s skills and lives is really special. And in the same sense, we are just normal to each other.”
They shared a sweet moment after Bird won her fifth Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games in August 2021.
“I am so proud of you @sbird10,” Rapinoe wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of her kissing Bird from the stands. “As if I could love you any more. Congrats baby!”
They are both passionate advocates for equality
Both Rapinoe and Bird have advocated for equal pay for women in sports, and they have been active in the Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name movements.
Rapinoe was notably a key leader in the fight to secure a $24 million equal pay settlement for the U.S. women’s national soccer team in 2022.
“In the end it came together,” Rapinoe told TODAY in 2022. “For us as players I’m just so proud of the way we stuck together and really just kind of put our foot down. This is a huge win for us.”
Are Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird married?
It looks like the couple isn’t in a huge rush to tie the knot. Bird opened up about some possible wedding ideas in a 2022 interview with People.
“Stars aligning seems to be the theme,” she said. “We’re kind of toying with having a wedding in Mexico maybe.”
She added that they wanted people to feel comfortable at their future wedding, whenever that may take place.
“We also talked about what we wanted the attire to be,” she said. “I think basically what you said, we would want people to come as themselves more than anything. More than anything, I think for both me and Megan, that’s really important in our own lives. So we’d want that for our guests as well.”
They founded a production company focused on ‘revolutionaries’
In December 2022, Bird and Rapinoe launched a production company, A Touch More, which “centers stories of revolutionaries who move culture forward,” according to the company’s website.
The company focuses on both scripted and unscripted content, and launched last year with “30 for 30: Pink Card,” an audio documentary about women in Iran fighting for the right to watch soccer.
They both recently made retirement announcements
Both Bird and Rapinoe recently announced their retirements, with Rapinoe marking her final World Cup and professional soccer season this year.
Rapinoe broke the news in a press conference last month, as well as in a heartfelt photo on social media of herself as a little girl.
“It is with a deep sense of peace & gratitude that I have decided this will be my final season playing this beautiful game,” she wrote. “I never could have imagined the ways in which soccer would shape & change my life forever, but by the look on this little girl’s face, she knew all along.”
Bird supported her fiancée in the comments.
“Congrats, baby!! That little girl is going to continue to do so much good in this world (but she sure did kill it on the field),” she wrote. “I love you.”
Rapinoe’s announcement came just under a year after Bird announced her retirement from the WNBA.
Last month, Bird’s Seattle Storm No. 10 jersey was retired in an emotional ceremony co-hosted by Rapinoe and the rapper Macklemore.
In a speech introducing Bird, Rapinoe called her fiancée “simply the best,” according to ESPN.