Serena Williams has admitted she is using weight-loss drugs after struggling to shift her post-pregnancy weight.
The 23-time Grand Slam tennis great said she has lost 31 pounds and wanted to speak out in an attempt to shake the stigma around their use.
“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,” Williams said in an interview on NBC’s Today.
Williams explained that, after giving birth to daughters, Olympia in 2017 and Adira in 2023, no amount of training and strict eating was enough to reach a weight she felt was healthy.
“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,” said the 43-year-old, who retired in 2022.
“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.”
She told People in a separate interview, “It was crazy because I’d never been in a place like that in my life where I worked so hard, ate so healthy, and could never get down to where I needed to be at.”
Williams also cited other health concerns, including diabetes, which runs in her family. She had also hoped slimming down would ease the strain on her knees, which she reckons stopped her adding to her record haul of Grand Slams.
Her incredible run ended in 2017 with a seventh Australian Open title, which she won while pregnant with her first daughter, and playing against sister Venus in the final.
“I had a lot of issues with my knees, especially after I had my kid,” she told Today. “That, quite frankly, definitely had an effect on maybe some wins that I could have had in my career.”
Williams has now been signed up as the face of a campaign for Ro, a company that prescribes GLP-1 medications through telehealth. Her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is an investor and board member.
On Thursday, she launched a campaign to normalize the use of weight loss drugs and combat the narrative that taking them is the “easy way out.”
“I feel great,” she told People, “I just can do more. I’m more active. My joints don’t hurt as much. I just feel like something as simple as just getting down is a lot easier for me.
“And I do it a lot faster. I feel like I have a lot of energy, and it’s great. I feel light physically and light mentally.”
Williams joins a wave of high-profile figures, including Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, and singer Meghan Trainor, who have disclosed taking the drugs.
Use has surged across the U.S., with about one in eight adults reporting they’ve taken a GLP-1 at some point, according to polling.
GLP-1 brands, including Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro, mimic a gut hormone that reduces appetite. Some versions are used for diabetes and, in Wegovy’s case, are also FDA-approved to lower the risk of heart attack and stroke in certain adults with obesity or overweight.
Williams said she hasn’t experienced side effects, which can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation.
As with many therapies, benefits taper once GLP-1 drugs are stopped, and some people regain weight, but Williams said the medication fits her life for the long haul. “I just feel normal again,” she said.
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