Serena Williams on Taking a GLP-1: ‘I Feel Like I’m Back’

The GOAT says we shouldn’t be shamed about what helps us feel better in our bodies.

January 13, 2026

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For Black women, being happy in your body is a radical act. Eurocentric beauty standards have long told us that our bodies are too round, too thick, too damn much. It’s one reason why we, as a community, have idolized Serena Williams—not only for breaking barriers through her dominance on the tennis court, but because here is a Black woman with a strong voice, powerful legs, and athletic arms on magazine covers and red carpets, never seeming to be at war with her body.

So I wasn’t surprised when Williams was hit with a whole lot of “how dare you”—as Oprah Winfrey put it on the January 13 episode of The Oprah Podcast—when she announced last August that she was partnering with telehealth company Ro and taking the weight-loss injectable Zepbound.

Williams was slammed on every corner of the internet—accused of chasing unrealistic beauty standards, sending a harmful message to women and athletes, and fueling post-baby “snapback culture.” Some Black women in my own circle said they felt let down by their role model. If the GOAT wasn’t okay with her body, how were the rest of us supposed to be okay with ours?

I attended a live taping of the podcast episode (and got some one-on-one time with Williams right after). A few minutes into my conversation with her, I worked up the nerve to ask about the reaction from some in the Black community. She understands it, she says. She knows she was a body-positivity symbol—and I think she still is. “I was never tiny. I was never a stick,” she tells me. “It took me a long time to understand that that wasn’t me, especially in my sport. But I love my body. I love how I look. I love who I am—and I always have. I think I love it even more now. I feel like I’m back.”

Williams admitted during the podcast interview that it took time to shake the idea that taking a GLP-1 was a shortcut or an easy way out. In fact, she doubled down on exercise before finally taking the plunge and starting the medication. She’d heard about health benefits beyond weight loss, which was ultimately what motivated her to give the medication a try.

When we spoke, I asked her about being a mom, getting older, and what she wants other women in these body-altering seasons to know. “[Taking a GLP-1] is not a failure. It’s not,” she tells me. “There should be no shame attached to it. I think a lot of people will be on GLP-1s—not only for weight loss, but for all the other things research is starting to show they help with.”

She’s referring to studies suggesting GLP-1s may lower the risk of dozens of diseases like stroke, heart attack, kidney disease, and dementia. They can also help reduce inflammation and improve joint pain for some.

Then she says what many people only whisper. “Everyone’s on it. They’re just not saying it. They don’t want the shame. But why should there be shame? You’d never knock someone for getting treated for another disease. So why this?”

She wanted to talk about it, she says to me, because she doesn’t think any of us should have to hide what helps us feel better in our bodies—or in our lives.

“When I started, I just had more energy,” she tells me. She’s in the thick of the terrible twos with Adira, the younger of the two daughters she shares with husband Alexis Ohanian, an investor in Ro. “She’s got no chill. She is nuts,” Williams laughs. “But it’s so fun to play with her on her level—to run around and do all the things.”

I wonder if something else has changed for Williams, beyond the physical. “You just feel more confident,” she says. “Not that we didn’t have confidence before, but after having a child, your body changes everything. To build that confidence back is an amazing feeling.”

She says confidence is something many of us don’t know is gone until we start to get it back. “I feel like I’m reclaiming the confidence that I always had and didn’t realize I’d lost,” she tells me. “We’re trained to just keep going, to accept. But we don’t have to accept feeling less than. If something helps you be who you are—then great.”

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Watching her talk about—and with—her newfound energy and confidence, I thought: This is a different woman from the one I’ve watched on screens for the last 25 years. She seemed lighter—and I don’t mean thinner. More unburdened. She was smiley, playful, and open. She even showed off her post-weight-loss joint improvement by dropping it low. “I feel physically so much better,” she said during the Winfrey interview, adding that she’s now able to do things she couldn’t when she was playing because of the effect extra weight had on her joints. (“I just wish I had [taken a GLP-1] while I was still playing,” she joked.)

Maybe it’s that she’s retired, or that her kids are past the most intense baby stage. Or maybe this is simply a woman feeling freer in her skin.

If I have anything in common with Williams, it’s knowing what it’s like to watch your body shape-shift with motherhood and age. My knees hurt too. And my midsection is expanding. And yes, I find the extra pounds aesthetically annoying. But I don’t hate my body. And neither does Williams.

“Life is short,” Williams adds. “You should love who you are at all times.”