Serena Williams Reveals She's Taking Weight Loss Medication: 'i Don't Take Shortcuts'

Tennis champion Serena Williams said Thursday that she is taking weight nonaccomplishment medicine aft struggling to spot results from fare and workout pursuing nan births of her 2 daughters, Olympia and Adira.

“As an jock and arsenic personification that has done everything, I conscionable couldn’t get my weight to wherever I needed to beryllium astatine a patient place, and judge maine I don’t return shortcuts. I do everything but shortcuts,” Williams said successful an question and reply pinch NBC News.

After Olympia was calved successful 2017, she said, she would tally and locomotion for hours to effort to suffer weight.

“I virtually was playing a master sport, and I could ne'er spell backmost to wherever I needed to beryllium for my health, for my patient weight, nary matter what I did,” she said. “I would ever suffer a batch of weight, and past I would stay. No matter what I did, I couldn’t spell little than that 1 number.”

There were different wellness considerations too, Williams said: Diabetes runs successful her family, and African American adults person a higher consequence of being diagnosed pinch it. She besides hoped that losing weight would relieve unit connected her knees.

“I had a batch of issues pinch my knees, particularly aft I had my kid,” she said. “That, rather frankly, decidedly had an effect connected possibly immoderate wins that I could person had successful my career.”

On Thursday, she launched a run pinch Ro, a institution that prescribes GLP-1 medications done telehealth, to normalize nan usage of weight nonaccomplishment narcotics and combat nan communicative that taking them is nan “easy measurement out.” Her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is an investor successful Ro and serves connected its board.

Williams joins a increasing database of celebrities who person publically shared their usage of weight nonaccomplishment medications, including Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, singer Meghan Trainor and hoops fable Charles Barkley, who is simply a Ro ambassador. Comedian Amy Schumer has said she tried Ozempic, but couldn’t tolerate nan broadside effects.

Williams said her weight nonaccomplishment travel became much challenging aft Adira was calved successful 2023. By then, she had announced her exit from master tennis aft a 27-year profession marked by 23 Grand Slams and 4 Olympic golden medals.

Nearly a twelvemonth ago, she started connected a people of weight nonaccomplishment medications called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which includes Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro. The narcotics suppress appetite by mimicking a hormone successful nan gut. Ozempic and Mounjaro are besides utilized to dainty glucosuria since they tin little humor sweetener levels. And Wegovy is approved to trim nan consequence of bosom onslaught and changeable successful adults pinch bosom illness who are overweight aliases obese.

Williams said she has been accordant astir taking nan medicine since April and has mislaid 31 pounds to date.