Serena Williams Says She Finally Accepts Her Figure After Years Of Body-Shaming

Serena Williams, with her powerful body and greatest-of-all-time tennis prowess, has long been the subject of misogynistic abuse and body-shaming.

For example, in 2014, the head of the Russian Tennis Federation was suspended for a year and fined $25,000 for calling Serena and elder sister Venus ‘the Williams brothers’ and saying: “It’s scary when you really look at them.”

In a new interview with Harpers Bazaar, she remembers the impact all this had on her:

People would say I was born a guy, all because of my arms, or because I’m strong. I was different to Venus: she was thin and tall and beautiful, and I am strong and muscular – and beautiful, but you know, it was just totally different.

She recalls an interview she did when she was 22, in which she shared a few goals she had for herself: Win the Italian and French Opens and Wimbledon, and get down to a US size four (UK size six).

“Oh god, I’ll never be a size four,” she says now. “Why would I want to do that, and be that? This is me, and this is my weapon and machine.” Plus, she wants to be a good influence for her baby daughter, Olympia.

But I love that I said that, because I can understand. I can show Olympia that I struggled, but now I’m happy with who I am and what I am and what I look like… Olympia was born and she had my arms, and instead of being sad and fearful about what people would say about her, I was just so happy.

Speaking about her daughter, she says she’s not pushing her into tennis, or any profession really: “I want to let her do whatever she wants to do, as long as it’s positive. Always try to be an addition to society, not a subtraction.”

• Serena Williams