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Alex Morgan & Megan Rapinoe on Winning the World Cup & Equal Pay

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Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe brought the World Cup trophy and their fight for equal pay straight into Jimmy Kimmel’s studio.

Ten days after the USWNT beat the Netherlands 2-0 in Lyon to claim a fourth World Cup title, co-captains Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe sat down with Jimmy Kimmel on July 11, 2019, for their first late-night appearance since coming home from France. The trophy came with them. So did the ongoing legal fight against U.S. Soccer that has followed the team through every step of its victory tour.

• The USWNT’s 2-0 win over the Netherlands in the final gave the team its fourth World Cup title and set up the Kimmel appearance as the players’ first late-night stop since returning from France.
• Kimmel greeted them with 5,000 McDonald’s chicken nuggets served by men in suits, a jab at President Trump’s habit of feeding fast food to championship teams after the USWNT’s public stance against a White House visit.
• Morgan and Rapinoe discussed the federal gender discrimination lawsuit filed against U.S. Soccer in March 2019, which as of August 2019 remains active with the players seeking nearly $67 million in damages.

A Nugget-Sized Jab at Washington

Kimmel didn’t ask Morgan and Rapinoe to explain why they’d skip a White House invitation — he built a bit around it instead. Knowing Rapinoe had already made her position on that clear, he staged a mock “presidential” reception on set, complete with a mountain of 5,000 chicken nuggets pulled together for the occasion and delivered by men in suits playing it dead straight.

The setup referenced Trump’s well-documented pattern of rolling out fast-food spreads for visiting championship teams. Morgan and Rapinoe played along with the absurdity of it, but the bit landed because everyone in the room understood what it was really pointing at: a team that had just won the sport’s biggest trophy while keeping the federation and the administration at arm’s length.

Equal Pay Chants and a $67 Million Lawsuit

The laughs gave way quickly to the reason the two were really there. Rapinoe and Morgan brought up the “Equal Pay” chants that broke out in the Lyon stadium the moment the final whistle blew — a crowd reaction that happened organically, in real time, before either player had said a word to a camera about it.

That chant has become shorthand for the case underpinning the team’s federal lawsuit against U.S. Soccer, filed in March 2019 and still active as of this appearance. The players are seeking close to $67 million in damages tied to disparities in pay and working conditions between the women’s and men’s national teams.

We were more physically exhausted from the week of celebration than we were from the tournament itself.

Exhausted by Celebration, Not by France

That exhaustion line wasn’t a throwaway joke. Between parades, interviews, and now a late-night set piece involving thousands of chicken nuggets, the team has barely had a quiet moment since the final whistle in Lyon. Morgan and Rapinoe made clear the celebration itself, not the tournament, had worn them down.

Still, neither player used that as a reason to step back from the lawsuit conversation. If anything, the crush of attention following the fourth title has given them a bigger platform to keep the pay dispute in front of the public — the same audience that was chanting for equal pay in the stands before the confetti even settled.

With the case seeking nearly $67 million and no resolution yet in sight as of August 2019, Morgan and Rapinoe used the Kimmel slot the way they’ve used every other stop on this tour — trophy in the room, cameras rolling, and the lawsuit never far from the conversation.