Serena Williams has been dealing with comments about her body since she was just 17 years old. Somehow, she’s developed the ability to tune it all out.
“People have been talking about my body for a really long time. Good things, great things, negative things,” Williams told Fader for her Oct./Nov. cover story interview.
She went on to speak about the importance of self-love in the face of other people’s judgments:
People are entitled to have their opinions, but what matters most is how I feel about me ... That’s the message I try to tell other women and in particular young girls. You have to love you, and if you don’t love you no one else will. And if you do love you, people will see that and they’ll love you too.
Beyoncé asked Williams to appear in her visual album “Lemonade” because the tennis star personifies strength. In “Lemonade” Williams owned her sexuality like the queen she is, twirling on her haters.
“Yeah, you know, it was ‘she’s too strong,’ and then ‘she’s too sexy,’ and then ‘she’s too strong’ again,” Williams said. “So I’m like, ‘Well, can you choose one?’ But either way, I don’t care which one they choose. I’m me and I’ve never changed who I am.”
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