Serena Williams has lost over 30 pounds in recent months, and she’s been very vocal about her weight loss journey. The tennis icon has become the new face of Ro, a healthcare company that provides GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy. It also happens to be the company her husband sits on the board of—something that many fans have found suspicious.
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Serena Williams Shows Off Her Weight Loss In Micro Shorts
Since announcing her partnership with Ro last August, Serena has not only been a vocal proponent of the company, but has also been showing off her weight loss on social media. In a recent video she posted on Instagram, she demonstrated one of her workout routines—pole dancing.
In the video, the mother-of-two showed off her impressive upper body and core strength by lifting herself on the pole using only her arms and core. Her sculpted leg muscles and chiseled abdominal muscles were on full display in her all-white workout set: a pair of micro mini shorts and a matching crop top. "Back at it!" she captioned the video.
Serena Williams Faces Backlash For Partnering With Husband's Weight Loss Company
Last August, Williams announced her partnership with Ro through a joint post with their official Instagram account. However, the wording of the video ruffled some feathers—
“Yes, I’m on Ro,” the video began. “They say GLP-1s for weight loss is a short cut. It’s not—it’s science. After kids, it’s the medicine my body needed. GLP-1s helped me lose 31 pounds.”
It’s not so much that Serena took weight loss medication that upset fans. In fact, it was a great move to help erase the stigma around weight loss drugs to show that even one of the greatest athletes of all time may need support in their weight loss journey. Speaking to Women’s Health, Serena confirmed this. “I am a very good use case of how you can do everything—eat healthy, work out to the point of even playing a professional sport and getting to the finals of Wimbledon and US Opens—and still not be able to lose weight.”
What Ro and Serena did wrong here was imply that Serena needed to lose weight—she said it herself: she's eating healthy, she's exercising; maybe she didn't need to lose weight. In her ad, she referenced that her body "needed" the weight loss drug in order to lose weight after having children. This what gave fans some pause. An icon, a role model, an incredible athlete promoting a message that women need to be smaller.
And that's not even the end of things. Internet detectives quickly found out that Serena's husband, Alexis Ohanian, who she married in 2017, sits on the board for Ro and is an investor in the company. Smells a little fishy, no?
