Besides their differing free-spirit and practical tendencies, the two are opposites in myriad of smaller ways. While New York-bred Bird is fine with her sneakers and casual wear and $4 moisturizer, Burberry- and Celine-loving Rapinoe, who has her own lifestyle brand and fills her medicine cabinet with Dior serums and $49 Shisheido sunscreen, is so into designer fashions she took over the entire second bedroom closet of their condo and was positively giddy when Bird stepped out in Gucci (another Rapinoe fave) for their joint InStyle shoot.
And, sure, Rapinoe may be a bit more brash, a what you see is what you get type, and Bird likes to carefully consider what parts of herself she’ll share with the world, but when it comes to the big things, the who you are at your core type stuff, they’re in lockstep.
“Sue has the same convictions about her life and the things she believes in as I do but, I think, does it in a different way,” Rapinoe explained in that 2017 ESPNW profile. Agreed Bird, “I can be quiet and a little shy. I’m usually just dipping my toe in the water until the extrovert part of me can come out.”