After sitting down for several interviews to discuss her use of GLP-1 weight loss medication, Serena Williams is opening up about why she opted to try the drugs in the first place.
The four-time Olympic gold medalist joined the hosts of Today for a candid interview on Thursday, August 21, during which she explained that several of her family members had diabetes, thus leading her to consider taking a GLP-1.
“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,” Williams said. “I do everything but shortcuts.”
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The mom-of-two has dropped 31 pounds since starting the medication. She also cited knee pain as a motivation to lose weight. “I had a lot of issues with my knees, especially after I had my kid,” Williams said. “That, quite frankly, definitely had an effect on maybe some wins that I could have had in my career.”
Though Williams did not disclose which medication she was prescribed, the tennis champion is currently a paid spokesperson for the telehealth company Ro, whose GLP-1 offerings include Zepbound, Ozempic, and Wegovy.
“I was on and off (the medication) and now completely on,” she told Today. “It was a really good decision I had to make for my life, you know, I tried everything.”
Williams welcomed her first daughter Olympia in 2017 followed by her second, Adira, who was born in 2023. She shares her children with her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
“This all started after I had my (first) kid,” she recounted on Today. “As a woman, you go through different cycles in your life….No matter what I did—running, walking, I would walk for hours because they say that’s good, I literally was playing a professional sport—and I could never go back to where I needed to be for my health.”
She went on, “Then, after my second kid, it just even got harder. So then I was like, ‘Okay, I have to try something different.’ That’s kind of what led to this whole journey….Do I want to choose health? What do I want to do?”
