Serena Williams covered a recent issue of Porter, net-a-porter.com’s digital magazine. Serena is still such an icon that she’s in demand for magazine covers and appearances three years after her retirement from tennis. She’s super-busy too – she has her venture capital firm, Serena Ventures, which is doing really well. She and Venus have a new podcast. Serena’s now got a big Ro endorsement as well. A few notable things about this interview: she doesn’t mention Ro, nor does she talk about her husband Alexis or their marriage. My Spidey sense is tingling but I hope I’m wrong. Some highlights:

Survival mechanism: “In tennis you can’t really be yourself, which sounds weird, but you have to keep a veil up. You can’t be too vulnerable. In a way I need[ed] to be seen as this person that’s always going to take my opponent out.”

Her podcast with Venus: “It’s cool for [everyone] to see how we truly are when we’re not chasing down tennis balls and winning championships. Whether you feel it or not, there is competition. It’s innate, it’s subconscious… So, I think it’s good to open up. On the podcast, I’ve learned so many things about [Venus]. She said [in an episode] that she was a robot. I was like, I never knew that. And she gets to learn my personality. I’m a feeler. I feel everything. So, it’s really kind of the evolution of our relationship, learning things that we subconsciously hid.”

Whether she misses tennis: “Not as much as this time last year. No matter how prepared you are to retire, and particularly from doing something every day at such a high level, it’s hard. I really prepped myself the best way I could, but it’s something that’s still a little difficult.”

Serena Ventures: “I do think my platform can help other people. We don’t only invest in women, but people of color, and women of color are just fractions of fractions, not even 1%, so, we invest in underrepresented founders. We truly are diverse. I like to say we invest in great companies and great founders. That’s how we like to do it.” Over the past 15 years, Williams has invested her own money into over 120 companies, 14 of them valued at $1 billion or more. Serena Ventures has raised over $100 million of outside capital to invest in more than 30 companies in the past five years.

Her daughters: She has Olympia, aged eight, and Adira, aged two, who she shares with her husband, Alexis Ohanian. “With Olympia, I didn’t leave her until she was five! That may have been a little extreme. And it’s not recommended! But I’ve just always wanted to be a mom….I want to be around my family. I’m cooking every night that I’m home. I’m home 29 nights a month… Sometimes I’ll fly to New York, do what I need to do, fly back and be home in time for dinner.”

On being honored at the Baby2Baby gala: “I do not like attention on me. I guess in tennis, I just did the best I could do, but I’m not the kind of person that needs to be in the center, in the front… It felt really good to be honored, but I was like, I’m never doing this again. Everyone’s like, congrats and good job. And I’m like, can we just not talk about me right now?”

Public discussions about her body: “It was hard because when I was playing in the beginning – the first 15 years – my body was different. I had big boobs; I had a big butt. Every athlete was like super flat, super thin and beautiful, but in a different way. And I didn’t understand as an athlete how to deal with that. It does affect you mentally. Absolutely. You think you’re large for your whole life and you look [back] and you’re like, I was fit. Yeah, I had big muscles. I didn’t look like these other girls but not everyone looks the same.”

Being Black in a mostly white sport: “Growing up and being Black in tennis, it’s just like, well, that comes with negativity…., You have something mean to say, get in line. You got to go way back. It’s going to take you a few days to get there. Join the crowd,. I don’t hear the noise. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. How am I going to sit here and change someone’s thought? If [you] don’t like me, you don’t have to.” She is grateful that things are better for the young Black female players at the top of their game today, from Coco Gauff to Naomi Osaka. “It’s changed. No one’s calling these girls the [things] I was called. People would say we were like men and all this other stuff.”

Her 2026 goals: “I want to leave behind anxiety, doubt and second-guessing myself… I want to bring in more clarity, confidence that I made the right decisions and that you don’t always have to live only for your children. I’m discovering me again.”

[From Porter]

I think Serena wants to see herself as someone who isn’t the center of attention, who is a bit shy and reticent, but that’s not actually who she is? She thrives in the spotlight, she comes alive on center stage, and Serena LOVES drama. During her career, she started so much sh-t and it was always funny as hell. I also think she never wanted to be separated from Olympia – even for one night – because there was so much trauma around Olympia’s birth. Serena almost died, and she reacted by never wanting to go anywhere or do anything without her baby.

Cover courtesy of net-a-porter and photos courtesy of Cover Images.