DF: What, if anything, surprised you about the other comments?

Chastain: I think what surprised me the most — and it was good — is that there’s a lot of passion out there. People feel very strongly about things, and the passion came out on this topic.

I was like, “Wow, there are a lot of different opinions out there, some of which I hadn’t even thought about.” Conversation is good — you might not agree with everyone, but at least it gives you a chance to contemplate someone else’s ideas. You get to challenge your own beliefs or philosophy, so it’s positive.

The “r” word is a scary word to me — I don’t like to say it. I’m not trying to say it doesn’t exist. It’s incredibly inflammatory and invites a lot of awful mistakes and injustices that have happened and still do happen. It’s a word that has been thrown around in a way that incites a lot of bad feelings in most people.

And I have to be quite sure that the people who decided to put that photo on the front in no way thought that this would be the commentary from that picture. I have to think that they said, “Here’s a picture that depicts them in what they do best — he plays basketball and she’s a supermodel.” Sometimes we make things be out of context.

Would I have loved to see Gisele carrying LeBron? Of course. One, it would be funny. Two, I’m sure she’s quite smart, she speaks a few languages and is very powerful in her occupation. She has a lot of strengths, and that picture doesn’t show those things.

So if a young girl were to see that photo, I wonder what she would say. From my perspective, it was more a gender issue than a race issue.

DF: There are obvious differences between the Vogue cover and your covers. ... Most significantly, LeBron and Gisele were models and you were reacting to a moment in the heat of a game. But you can relate to the idea that a photo of you became a phenomenon in which people could project their own meanings and interpretations to the photo. ... What was that like?

Chastain: For me, my basic comment to anyone who asked me about it was that I was actually excited to have the conversations. It gave us a chance to talk about issues, and it always came back to soccer. So it was an open-door invitation to talk about the picture but also other things.

LeBron and Gisele can sound off with their own opinions, if they want to. But it’s not up to them to have everybody feel peace and harmony from it. They have to know that they got what they wanted from it and are happy with it. I’m fairly certain that those pictures had to have been reviewed by them at some point. I assume they were quite comfortable with it. If they weren’t, then that’s another story.

DF: But the notion that an image of you is beamed out around the world, giving people the chance to talk about you from their perspectives ... and that you essentially surrender control of your own image to the world. How strange was that?

Chastain: It’s surreal, to be sure. Sometimes exhausting, to be honest. You’re just trying to be yourself, and for me, playing soccer was being myself. One day, you’re one person on a team. The next thing you know, people are asking your opinion about things you’re not an expert on.

Because they recognize you, they think you must know something about something — which isn’t necessarily the case. People will now ask LeBron and Gisele about race — something they may or may not be prepared to respond to. If they say, “I don’t know” — which is a great answer if you don’t know the answer — that’s a dangerous place to be.

DF: Is there a particular question that stands out that you answered that you shouldn’t have answered?

Chastain: I’m fairly certain I said a few things that upset people or maybe didn’t take enough time to think thoroughly about the question. But what I’ve really learned is to be open to listen to other people’s opinions and then question my own thoughts. And learn how to talk to people. The biggest gift from having one of these moments is that it gets people talking.

DF: How did things change for you and your teammates between ’91, when you won the World Cup largely in anonymity, and the ’99 World Cup, when you played in front of huge crowds and got so much attention?

Chastain: I think it all started in 1996, which was the first time women’s soccer was in Olympics. Even though they only showed about 30 seconds of one of our games [on TV], it was like our inauguration into the world of sports in America.

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