This post discusses weight loss and body image.
In recent years, Serena Williams has addressed comments about her appearance multiple times.
Back in 2021, the tennis icon deleted an Instagram photo after being accused of purposefully altering her complexion — and in 2024, she outright denied claims that she’d lightened her skin tone.
“I put just that neutral color, that is actually my skin color... And no, for you haters out there, I do not bleach my skin,” she said during an Instagram Live after a viral X video fueled the rumors. “There is a thing called sunlight, and in that sunlight, you get different colors.”
“I’m calling you out on this because it is ridiculous,” she said as she addressed viewers. “Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, she bleached her skin.’ I’m a dark, Black woman, and I love who I am, and I love how I look. And if people do it, that’s their thing, and they have every opportunity and they should. I don’t judge, but you guys do.”
“But that’s what this world is about, and I stay in my lane — the non-judgy one — and I keep it. But no, I actually don’t bleach my skin, so can we just kinda clear that up?” she said.
More recently, Serena has faced relentless commentary around her physique, with the star revealing last year that she’d been using a GLP-1 to aid weight loss.
“As an athlete and as someone that has done everything, I just couldn’t get my weight to where I needed to be at a healthy place, and believe me, I don’t take shortcuts. I do everything but shortcuts,” she told TODAY.
“I literally was playing a professional sport, and I could never go back to where I needed to be for my health, for my healthy weight, no matter what I did,” she said. “I would always lose a lot of weight, and then I would stay. No matter what I did, I couldn’t go lower than that one number.”
Amid all of this, Serena has repeatedly documented how her body has looked since she began taking the medication.
And things were no different this weekend, with Serena posting photos of herself in a sleeveless crop top, with the caption, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
Over on TikTok, Serena shared a video of herself dancing and wrote, “Looks like my knee is getting better. Finally!” (The star recently withdrew from the Wimbledon Championships due to a severe injury in her right knee.)
Serena’s posts were quickly flooded with comments from users who felt she looked totally unrecognizable. “wait that's not Serena Williams who is that,” one TikTok user said, while another wrote, “didn't even recognize her.”
“Honestly didn’t recognize her,” someone else said. “WHO IS THIS,” another comment read.
Comments