Star athlete Megan Rapinoe recently won Glamour Magazine’s Woman of the Year Award, but it was her comments about Colin Kaepernick that turned heads, The Washington Post reported.

While accepting the award Monday, Rapinoe said she owes some of her success to Kaepernick. 

“I don’t feel like I would be here without [him],” she said, according to The Post.

She said Kaepernick has demonstrated courage and bravery, all while knowing the consequences. His doing so inspired her to do the same, she said.

“While I’m enjoying all of this unprecedented — and, frankly, a little bit uncomfortable — attention and personal success, in large part due to my activism off the field, Colin Kaepernick is still effectively banned from the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem in protest of known and systematic police brutality against people of color, known and systematic racial injustice, and known and systematic white supremacy,” Rapinoe told the New York audience in Alice Tully Hall.

“I see no clearer example of that system being alive and well than me standing before you right now. It would be a slap in the face to Colin, and to so many other faces, not to acknowledge, and for me personally, to work relentlessly to dismantle that system that benefits some over the detriment of others, and frankly is quite literally tearing us apart in this country,” she added.

Stressing unity, Rapinoe also said, “we can move on from losing alone to the belief in winning together.”

Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since 2016 after he decided to kneel during the national anthem in protest of police brutality, Blavity reported. In solidarity, Rapinoe took a knee in 2016.

“I am disgusted with the way [Kaepernick] has been treated by the fans and hatred he has received in all of this,” Rapinoe told espnW’s Julie Foudy in 2016. “It is overtly racist. ‘Stay in your place, Black man.’ Just didn’t feel right to me. We need a more substantive conversation around race relations and the way people of color are treated.”

Her speech also included praise for women in general.

“Shoutout to women this year. Every woman! We’re just killing it the whole year. So shoutout to just women in general,” she added.

Rapinoe was the star of the U.S. national soccer team during the 2019 Women’s World Cup, a competition that led to her receiving the Golden Ball award as the top player, according to USA Today. 

Bustle reported that Rapinoe has described herself as a “walking protest.” She and other members of the women’s soccer team have filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. soccer league in a fight for equal pay.

Rapinoe, who is openly gay, also promotes LGBTQ causes. She was the first openly gay woman to pose in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue in May, Bustle reported.

Similar to Kaepernick, Rapinoe has publicly feuded with President Donald Trump, at one point saying she would not visit the White House.

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