Serena Williams Talks Interracial Marriage And Her New HBO Series, ‘Being Serena’

Serena Williams opened up in an interview about life as a new mom and her five-part HBO series, Being Serena. The series is set to give fans a glimpse into Serena’s life and document the 36-year-old’s first pregnancy. The series will also feature Serena’s life-threatening postnatal problems and her return to dominance on the tennis court.

Serena said that when she steps on the court to play tennis, she becomes a different person. This is a side that many people see and may judge her accordingly.

“The second I step onto the facilities, the grounds, I become a different person, and the second I step off, I’m back to being Serena, no pun intended.”

During her interview, Serena said that the differences between herself and her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is what seems to draw the couple together. Williams said that she is pleasantly surprised that she and her husband are so compatible, according to the New York Times.

“Literally all I tell Alexis is, ‘well, you know, there’s such a difference between white people and black people.’ He always gets to hear about the injustices that happen; that wouldn’t happen if I were white. It’s interesting. I never thought I would have married a white guy, either, so it just goes to show you that love truly has no color, and it just really goes to show me the importance of what love is. And my dad absolutely loves Alexis.”

The superstar athlete said that when she found out she was pregnant, she kept saying that she wanted footage of herself. The docu-series came about in an organic fashion.

“I remember my dad had all this film when we were younger, all this cool footage, and I wanted to start this journey for Olympia, even though she was the size of a raspberry at the time.”

After Serena shared the idea of documenting her pregnancy with her agent, Jill Smoller, HBO discovered Serena’s project and asked if they could produce it for her. Williams said that her original idea was to have filming based on her daughter. After the network showed major interest, Serena decided to include her own life into the storyline.

For many, Serena’s talk about her interracial marriage stuck out. The tennis champ said that love has no color and that she wanted to be with someone who treated her well, was able to laugh, and understood her life, according to BET.

“Ultimately I wanted to be with someone who treated me nice, someone who was able to laugh with me and someone who understood my life and someone that loved me.”

Many of Serena’s followers thanked her for speaking positively about interracial relationships, while others criticized the athlete for her choice.

According to the New York Times, Serena said that her desire to play tennis is strong, but if she weren’t playing tennis, she would have talked her husband into having another baby.

“Oh yeah, if I wasn’t wanting to play tennis… I definitely would have talked Alexis into having a baby already.”

However, when speaking to Extra, the tennis champ said that she would love to have another child with her husband, but her health is very important to her. Williams developed life-threatening blood clots after giving birth to Alexis Olympia.

“I’m taking it one day at a time. I would love it, but I have to see if I can do it. Obviously, my health is pretty important, too. I’ll take it one day at a time and see.”

Serena has won 23 Grand Slam singles trophies, with the most recent of which was won at the Australian Open in 2017 when she was two months pregnant with Olympia.