Serena Williams, one of the greatest athletes of all time, now finds herself at the center of a storm. Her decision to endorse GLP-1 weight loss drugs has sparked commentary from all corners. But the most telling reaction came from the Daily Mail, which ran the headline: “Shame on Serena Williams! She may be starving herself on prescription anorexia drugs. But this putrid stunt proves she’s still a greedy beast.”
That choice of words was not criticism. It was a dehumanizing attack, rooted in a long history of misogynoir that has shadowed Williams throughout her career.
Serena’s Body Has Always Been Targeted
From the beginning, Serena’s physical presence drew ridicule from those who could not reconcile her strength with narrow standards of femininity. Critics called her ‘manly,’ ‘ugly,’ and mocked her as a ‘beast’ even as she dominated tennis like no other woman before her. She was called a monkey. Her muscular frame, once dismissed as unfeminine, became the subject of racist caricatures in newspapers and online memes.
Commentators praised white athletes with unconventional builds as powerful or groundbreaking, yet they reduced Serena to insults. The Daily Mail’s latest headline continues that pattern. By describing her as ‘still a greedy beast’ for taking a medical product, they repeat the same demeaning script used against Black women for generations.
The Double Standard on Weight and Health
Williams is denied any grace. When she was muscular, critics said she was too masculine. When she gained weight after childbirth, they said she had let herself go. Now that she has chosen to slim down with medical help, she is told she is vain and greedy.
This double bind shows how Black women’s health decisions are never treated as legitimate. Serena stated that her weight was causing her health issues and that she was unable to reduce it despite her best efforts. Even that explanation has been twisted into mockery. For Black women, self-care is framed as indulgence, while suffering in silence is demanded.
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Why This is About Misogynoir, Not Medicine
Commentators like Jameela Jamil have raised concerns about the risks of GLP-1 drugs and the ethics of celebrity endorsements. Those are valid debates. Although what the Daily Mail published is something else entirely.
Jamil raised fair concerns about celebrities promoting GLP-1 drugs without fully addressing their risks, noting that side effects can be devastating and that most people lack the elite medical support stars enjoy. That critique has weight, but it also highlights a double standard.
When Serena faced years of dehumanization over her looks, only a few pieces from non-Black women warned that such ridicule could harm her mentally or damage the self-worth of millions of Black women who looked like her. Critics forced Serena to endure the abuse in silence. Now she affirms herself, speaks honestly about her choices, and prioritizes her health instead of pretending it was all gym sessions and salads. Yet those same critics suddenly frame her decision as a national health crisis threatening women everywhere else. The hypocrisy is insidious and hard to ignore.
“GLP-1 helped me enhance everything that I was already doing — eating healthy and working out, whether it was as a professional athlete at the top level of tennis or just going to the gym every day… I did a lot of research on it. I was like, ‘is this a shortcut? What are the benefits? What are not the benefits?’ I really wanted to dive into it before I just did it. After deciding it was the right choice for me, I consulted with a doctor through Ro and began weekly injections about six months after Adira was born, when I stopped breastfeeding in early 2024.” — Serena Williams told People Magazine.
Final Thoughts
Calling Serena Williams a “greedy beast” is not a warning about health risks. It is the recycling of racist tropes that have long cast Black women as animalistic, excessive, and undeserving of dignity. The irony is that many of the same voices criticizing her now stayed silent when she was mocked for being too muscular, too dark, too unfeminine. For decades, Serena endured abuse that policed her body and denied her beauty.
Now, after choosing medicine to address her health and feel better in her own body, she is once again attacked by people who frame it as her conforming to society’s beauty standards. The outrage seems less about the drugs and more about the loss of a hierarchy where Black women like Serena were cast as an underclass others felt superior to. Critics shame women when they are heavy, ridicule them for wearing natural hair, and mock them when they reject society’s beauty standards. Yet when they conform to stop the ridicule—whether through weight loss, weaves, or other choices—the backlash only grows louder.
Serena Williams is a 23-time Grand Slam champion, a mother, and a businesswoman. Serena has every right to make health and career choices without enduring a cycle of misogynoir. The real scandal lies in how critics mock, punish, and discredit Black women’s autonomy whenever it challenges their comfort.
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It’s exhausting the way people police what black people does. If this was someone white would Jamil write the same things, I doubt it. It’s the same thing when Sinners came out and some of the Latinos were calling out the director saying they weren’t represented yet there are lots of films that comes out years after years that they’re not in but they say nothing. They only seems to have flex when it a black person who makes the movie.