“The consequences of an act I did not commit”: Jennifer Hermoso received death threats after the kissing scandal

class=”sc-29f61514-0 fwWrRV”>

The bizarre kiss scene from the final of the 2023 Women’s World Cup went around the world. Unsolicited, the then Spanish club boss Luis Rubiales (46) kissed the newly crowned world champion Jennifer Hermoso (33) on the mouth at the awards ceremony.

Nearly three months have passed since the scandal. The storm of outrage that the action caused has now subsided. Rubiales has been banned by FIFA for several years now. And Hermoso itself reported Rubiales in September for sexual assault. But none of this undoes what the player went through in the aftermath of the attack. In an interview with GQ magazine, Jennifer Hermoso openly talks about the sometimes shocking reactions she faced.

“I didn’t choose this”

“These weeks were very difficult,” says the Spaniard about the time after the World Cup final. It hurt her a lot to talk about it regularly. At the same time, she received death threats from complete strangers that she could never get used to. “I had to deal with the consequences of an act that I did not provoke and choose.”

Hermoso has repeatedly called for speaking out about the problems in male-dominated Spanish football. Since then, she has been calling for systematic changes. And she fiercely defends herself against Rubiales’ lack of insight when it comes to the crime. She says: “I want to be remembered as a person who helped Spain move forward, but above all as a person who tried to change the mentality.” She hopes this will create a new era for women’s sports.

Privately, Hermoso is still receiving psychological care to deal with the fallout from the kissing scandal, but says, “I haven’t lost my enthusiasm.” For her fight against the trivialization of the attack, GQ has now named her Spanish Woman of the Year.

Source : Blick