V.F. cover star @SerenaWilliams—world’s best athlete (plus, mom and wife-to-be)—still has her eyes on the prize https://t.co/kvYTrrcPdW pic.twitter.com/zTq6ZGYb4k
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) June 27, 2017
Newly minted part-time San Franciscan Serena Williams and her fiancé of seven months, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, have given the exclusive on their romance, pregnancy, and impending nuptials to Vanity Fair and of course the tennis superstar has taken her turn doing the Annie Liebowitz cover shoot in the nude with pregnant belly in profile.
Among the biggest takeaways from the piece are the fact that this pregnancy was not planned and Serena was immediately kind of pissed that she wasn't going to get her shot at winning Wimbledon this year, and the fact that Alexis has always kind of hated tennis he's more of a football and basketball guy and says he "really had no respect for tennis."
But the story of their first meeting in Italy he was speaking at a tech conference in Rome the same week she was competing in the Italian Open in May 2015, and both were at the same hotel and their courtship, is an endearing one.
And we learn that they don't plan on having a shotgun wedding, but will be tying the knot sometime after the baby (a girl!) is born around September. ALSO, we learn that the couple will be living bi-coastally he in San Francisco, she at her house in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida until marriage, seeing each other on weekends, and they're not revealing where their full-time residence may be after that though we thought Serena's taking a position on the board of SF-based Survey Monkey was a strong clue.
Below, some more important takeaways from the piece, assuming you won't have time to read the full thing until later:
- Serena had no clue what Reddit was when she and Alexis first met on the patio of the hotel at breakfast, but she lied and said she did because she kind of wanted tech advice on her own website.
- Alexis was hungover from being out drinking the night before with Kristen Wiig (!), who was in Rome shooting Zoolander 2. (He knows her cousin.)
- They had a very romantic, spontaneous day in Paris together about a year later.
- They did a lot of texting and Facetiming, given their schedules, and Serena, a Jehovah's Witness who's not supposed to believe in birthdays, Facetimed Alexis on his birthday last year, and that's when he says he wanted to marry her.
- They actually got engaged before she knew she was pregnant and maybe conceived when they were on their romantic return trip to Rome where Alexis proposed?!
- Serena was practicing for the Australian Open and having morning sickness in January, and took six pregnancy tests before accepting the truth.
- She made the announcement by making Alexis fly to Melbourne early and handing him a paper bag with the six positive tests in it but, like, no birth control? What did they think would happen?
- A doctor told her she was only three or four weeks pregnant and she was fine to play in the tournament, but she was actually seven or eight weeks at that point.
- Despite lacking her usual endurance and feeling noticeably tired because of the pregancy, she won the tournament anyway in straight sets.
- Alexis says that "Serena is really the nerd, knowing, for example, all the words to the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender by heart."
As of now, Serena is, no joke, planning to resume competing as early as next January. So, back to the Australian Open and I'm not sure what that means for how often we'll be seeing her randomly showing up at the courts at Dolores Park.
Related: Reddit Co-Founder and Serena Fiance Turns To Reddit For Parenting Advice