Serena Williams is laying it all bare when it comes to her newfound confidence in her body. While the retired tennis pro has always been considered one of the most athletic and dominant in the game, she's now developed a new love for her body.
The athlete, 44, admitted earlier this year during an appearance on NBC's TODAY that she had used a GLP-1 medication to assist with her weight loss journey after realizing that her traditional fitness regime and diet weren't helping her bounce back postpartum. She admitted to losing 31 pounds through her new routine.
In August of 2023, Serena and her husband Alexis Ohanian welcomed their second child, daughter Adira Ohanian, with the Wimbledon champ confessing during her interview that "it just even got harder" after welcoming Adira, amplified more so by her body never fully recovering from her first pregnancy with daughter Olympia.
Now, speaking with Net-A-Porter and starring on their latest cover, Serena is loud and proud about her physique, appearing in a range of fashion choices, including a Saint Laurent oversized leather jacket for the cover, an Alaïa bodycon black midi dress, and a stunning Alaïa cut-out black swimsuit.
For the swimsuit snap in particular, the mom-of-two posed by the pool in black Alaïa heels, surrounded by palm trees, sporting slicked back hair and displaying her toned physique.
In the interview itself, Serena admits that she was insecure about her body growing up because it was such a talking point when she was coming up in the tennis world. "It was hard because when I was playing in the beginning – the first 15 years – my body was different."
She compared herself to her contemporaries who were, in her words, "super flat, super thin and beautiful, but in a different way" and constantly found herself contrasting her own appearance, saying she "had big boobs; I had a big butt," adding: "And I didn't understand as an athlete how to deal with that."
Serena continued: "It does affect you mentally. Absolutely! You think you're large for your whole life and you look [back] and you're like, I was fit. Yeah, I had big muscles. I didn't look like these other girls but not everyone looks the same."
Winning her first Open at 17, the 1999 US Open, inspired her to stop engaging the negativity about herself. "I was so young, but I said I'm never going to read anything about me," she explained. "At the Open, there was so much positivity, and I thought, I don't want my head to get too big. I wanted to stay humble. I also thought if it's negative, I don't want to read it."
Speaking with TODAY in August, while announcing her partnership with healthcare company Ro, Serena noted of her GLP-1 use: "A misconception is that it's a shortcut. 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."
She specified that her use of a GLP-1 medication did not come from a place of wanting to just lose weight, but more so to aid in her postpartum recovery, likely sparked by a metabolic issue.