Serena Williams Is Telling Her Story, Her Way (2024)

Serena Williams is the kind of athlete who has transcended her sport. In the course of her 27-year professional career, Williams smashed just about every major record in women’s tennis: She won a combined 39 Grand Slam titles (23 in singles; 14 in women’s doubles, all with her older sister Venus; and two in mixed doubles). She won four Olympic gold medals (three with Venus). She was ranked number one in the world for 319 weeks, including a joint-record 186 consecutive weeks. She is the highest-earning female athlete in history. She is, quite simply, the GOAT.

Now, nearly two years after declaring that she planned to “evolve” away from tennis in order to pursue her dream of expanding her family, Williams is the star and executive producer of the second installment of In the Arena, which premieres Wednesday on ESPN+.

Directed by Gotham Chopra (a filmmaker renowned for his intimate portraits of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Simone Biles) and executive produced by Tom Brady (the star of 2021’s original Man in the Arena), the new eight-episode docuseries chronicles Williams’s record-breaking career, starting with her memories of growing up on the public courts of Compton, California, with her tight-knit family, and culminating in her heart-wrenching decision to step away from the sport that has become synonymous with her surname.

“I’ve never really been able to dive into the intimate moments, because tennis is so intense, and I was so intense and so focused and not really thinking about a deeper story. I was just thinking about … winning,” Williams tells Harper’s Bazaar with a laugh at the Tribeca Film Festival, where . “I never really went down memory lane; I always felt like I wanted to stay focused and continue to do the task at hand. So it was nice to take a deep breath and then tell a story that has never been told before.”

With the exception of 2018’s Being Serena, a five-part HBO docuseries, Williams rarely reciprocated filmmakers’ interest in capturing her at the height of her career. But a year into her second act, she decided that if she was going to open up like never before, she would have to be the one to produce her career retrospective. But that doesn’t mean she has shied away from the most painful parts of her history.

In 2021’s King Richard, Will Smith starred as Williams’s father, the mastermind coach who transformed two of his daughters into all-time greats and revolutionized a predominantly white sport in the process. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and Smith won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance. In the wake of its critical success, Williams sees In the Arena as her family’s latest attempt to take back control of the narrative the media perpetuated throughout her and Venus’s playing careers.

“Sometimes, so many people are just telling a different story or seeing a visual of you being intense on the court and making that who you are,” says Williams, who says the new series is the first of many Hollywood projects she plans to release in the next few years. “What I loved about King Richard is, we were able to finally tell the truth about my dad and [show that] people created this narrative that was completely untrue.”

Since retiring from tennis, Williams has busied herself with investing via her venture capital firm, Serena Ventures, and launching her own production company, a body care and pain relief start-up, and a new cosmetics line, Wyn Beauty. She is also now a mother of two. But as she tells Bazaar below, there’s a part of her that will always miss the adrenaline rush of hitting an ace down break point.

You and Venus said you didn’t exactly set out to break barriers as Black women in a predominantly white sport—you just wanted to be the best. But as teenagers, you were suddenly thrust into this position of being expected to represent an entire community. How did you approach the social and cultural implications that came with your success on the tour?

It was natural for us. It was also at a time [in the late ’90s and early 2000s] where a lot of young kids were growing up and continuing their career in different arenas, from music to acting. So for us, it was like, “Oh … now we’re role models? And now we’re all this other stuff? This is weird, but this is who we are and it’s okay.” We kind of embraced it, and we were happy about it. And then as time went on, we were never thinking about being leaders; we just wanted to play tennis. But sometimes, with great talent and great wins comes things that you don’t expect. We definitely didn’t expect this, but it was something that we fully embraced, and honestly, we’re excited to feel that we were able to break barriers and open doors for other people. And then to see so many players come up and say they liked us was kind of surreal but also really cool.

How have you navigated the emotional toll of meeting expectations of perfection, which comes with being a person of color in those kinds of spaces?

It’s hard because when you are a person of color, you’re expected to—you have to—win so many times more than someone else. To be honest, as a Black woman, we are basically starting at the bottom. You don’t get paid as much. You don’t get as many opportunities. And no matter what you do, it’s always, “Oh, she’s mean,” or “Oh, she’s this,” and none of that is necessarily true. So it’s [about] breaking down those false narratives and also being okay with being yourself and letting people see that. I think it’s something that we have to talk about and embrace more: “These barriers also have to be broken down.” And I’m okay to do that too. [Smiles.]

But I think it’s no secret that people of color, especially Black women, are judged and punished more harshly for the same missteps.

Oh gosh, especially me in tennis—and I get into that in a different story, but [that project is coming] in a few years. But I was judged way more harshly than people that have done the same [thing]. I don’t know, but I think I had the biggest fine in the sport. [Gives a signature Serena side-eye and lets out a wry laugh.] Listen, I’m not a saint on the court. I’m the first to admit I’m the most psycho person on the court. I’m crazy, and I probably deserved a lot of that. But in the sport, I think that’s a bit much, when you think about it.

Having faced all kinds of scrutiny about your body and your actions on and off the court for the better part of the last 25 years, what insights do you think you have gained about what the culture thinks of female athletes—but especially Black female athletes—and what is expected of them?

[I think] strong is powerful; strong is beautiful. That’s why Wyn Beauty was created, just because I am always in the public eye and I’m an athlete, and I wanted to have things that are performance or active beauty. [We live in] an era of female athletes that are powerful and gorgeous and strong at the same time, and you can showcase that now. Before, it was like, “Choose. You can’t have both.” And now it’s just like, “No, it doesn’t have to be that way.” I’ve always said, “You can be strong and beautiful at the same time.” Look it up. I’ve said this for years.

You were certainly one of the pioneers of mixing fashion with tennis—every outfit you wore on court was meant to make a fashion statement. But when you were younger, did you ever doubt that decision?

No, I had my outfits and I was wearing makeup on the court and still winning. Embracing fashion and makeup was just always something that I’ve always done. I never thought it would be a movement—and I never did anything for a movement. I just thought: This is who I am, and this is how I wanted to present myself. And obviously, it wasn’t perfect, but I just did the best I could at the time.

How would you describe your transition away from the sport?

If you think about it, my whole life has been geared towards tennis since I was using a walker. So, for that to be taken away from you is very weird and very hard. It’s like you have to learn how to walk again—and I’ve had to do that. I’ve buried myself in Serena Ventures and I’ve buried myself in other things, so I didn’t have to think about it. I also had a kid instantly [laughs], so I was just trying not to think. So now that all that is slowing down, it’s definitely a curve, but it’s a softer curve. It’s not like a free fall. I think it would’ve been if I hadn’t done so much right after [my last match at the U.S. Open in 2022], but it’s just been a little bit of a curve.

Being involved in tennis is something that I’m still trying to figure out how to do. I love tennis. It’s given so much to me, and I want to figure out how to do that. With Wyn Beauty, having that be … I wouldn’t say sport-based, but it’s more like active beauty, so you can be very active in it. I can go to the WNBA, and I can go to tennis [and sell the products]. I can go to all these amazing women athletes, so for me, it’s really just [about] being a part of a women athlete group. I’m also doing it through investing. There are just so many different angles that I look at, and I think it’s quite interesting for my evolution.

What kind of relationship do you have with tennis now?

I love watching it. I love playing it. I love being a part of it. I’m still really good at it. [Laughs.] I always say the reason I stopped was not because of injury. It was because I wanted to have a family. And that was a very hard decision to have to make when you know you can still play and perform at a very high level, and then have to say no [to that part of yourself], because you want to have a future and leave a mark. I think if I didn’t have that, maybe I wouldn’t miss it as much, but because of the way I had to depart, maybe I do miss a little bit more than the average person.

You mention that you’re still really good at tennis. Does the competitor in you still want to be out there on the court? Do you still flirt with the idea of coming back for one last dance? How do you deal with those feelings?

I don’t think about it. It’s too soon. Obviously, I would like to be there. I think if you can experience that high in any sport, in front of a crowd that is there to see you and your opponent at that time, no matter where, it’s such an incredible high—and it’s addicting. And I talk about that in the documentary, how it’s super addicting. Honestly, it’s like a drug. So, obviously, yeah, you do miss that. I think there’s some part [of me] that will always miss that. I think a lot of athletes always talk about great moments that they’ve had that will never die, and I honestly feel fortunate that I had an opportunity to talk about great moments, because it could have been different.

Do you feel like stepping away from tennis has changed your relationship with time at all? So often when we hear about people starting a new chapter, they talk about all the things they want to accomplish. But as you get older, time does seem to accelerate.

I said that yesterday! When you get old, time flies. When you’re young, it’s like a snail.

No, I started my second career long before tennis ended, and I got a lot of criticism for that, like, “The Williams sisters aren’t focused. They need to focus more.” People wrote op-eds and open letters to me, but I was like, “No, actually, it made my career longer.” I also had other interests, and that was really important to me to have these other interests. And now, you look at athletes, and every athlete has a second act already before they’re even professional! So, I’m glad I stuck to my guns. It was an easier fall for me because I had Serena Ventures. Literally after the open, I went straight into a team meeting that was a few hours long and didn’t stop until maybe a couple of weeks ago. [Laughs.]

You speak in the documentary about how lonely it was at the top, because you were the one all the other women were trying to beat. What kind of relationship do you have with some of your former rivals now?

I was close to a few players that I’m still really close to. I mean, not really close, but close-ish to. One of my best friends is Caroline [Wozniacki, who came out of retirement last year], so we’ll always be close. That’s just a different kind of relationship, though. But there’s other players that I’ve always gotten along with and I will always get along with. I think Maria [Sharapova] is someone that I think I would love to … not have a relationship with, but I think we could be friends.

It’s funny you say that, because Maria even said, before you both retired, that she thought you two might eventually be friends. You two were always pitted against each other in the media, but the truth is you share an esoteric understanding of what it meant to be at the top of this sport. It’s been fun to see you take pictures together at fashion events.

We always love seeing each other. At the Met Gala, I literally was looking for her. I was like, “Where’s Maria? Where is she at?” I think she’s a super cool girl. And it’s not a shame, because I don’t regret it, but I think we both had to be incredibly competitive. And now that we’re in a different part of our life, I have so much respect for her. And obviously, I did when I was playing too. I had to gear up to win every single time, but it’s a different kind of respect now.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.