Serena Williams Dishes on Texting Her Friend Meghan Markle for Support
The world's greatest female athlete reveals how she ‘relies’ on her duchess buddy for encouragement and solidarity, and speaks of their text exchanges.
IAN WEST
When Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in May of this year, Serena Williams was among the astonishing array of celebrity guests lined up in the pews of Windsor Castle’s chapel to celebrate the special day. And now the tennis legend has spoken about how the two of them have each other’s back, saying they often message to support each other.
Serena was discussing her friendship with the Duchess of Sussex in an interview with Australia’s The Project that took place three days after her controversial outburst against a referee she accused of sexism as she lost the final of the U.S. Open.
Williams, 36, said she and Markle, 37, have increasingly turned to each other for support under the pressure of recent events.
“We were actually just texting each other this morning,” said the tennis ace as casually as if she were talking about sending a message to her sister. “We have known each other for a long time, but we really are relying on each other a lot recently,” she added.
Markle and Williams met in 2010, at Super Bowl XLIV in Miami, and have kept in touch ever since. Immediately after the wedding, Williams hailed it as a key moment of cultural progress.
Referring to the many elements of black culture in the wedding, including a gospel choir and a fiery sermon from Bishop Michael Curry, Williams said, “It was really exciting to see so much African-American culture in the wedding and I was really happy that Meghan wanted to incorporate that into it.
“It was just a whole cultural shift and change. It was seeing how far African-Americans have come. I thought it was an incredibly inspiring and beautiful and really motivating thing. I was so proud of her and so happy for her.”
In the new interview, Williams elaborated on those remarks, saying: “To have such a monumental moment in England, of all places, I felt like we were literally watching history.
“I feel like in a few years we are going to look back at that moment and it’s going to be so historic. It’s going to be something that people never forget. The whole service was really wonderful, and most of all I just wanted to see my friend be happy. And I think that’s what happened.”