Serena Williams shares mental health update and says she’s ‘not okay today’

Serena Williams gets candid about how she feels.

“I’m not doing well today. And that’s okay not to be okay. No one is okay every day. If you’re not doing well today, I’m with you. There is always tomorrow. I love you,” Williams, 42, wrote via X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, November 28.

In a next post on XWilliams shared a selfie with her three-month-old daughter Adira River, who she shares with her husband Alexis Ohanian, lying against her. “This makes me so happy,” she wrote.

This isn’t the first time the tennis legend has opened up about her mental health. In September 2022, Williams had an honest conversation with Selena Gomez as part of the singer’s “Lose You to Love Me” mental health platform, Wonder Spirit.

“Mental fitness for me is just learning to shut down,” Williams explains. “You know, I did this years ago, before mental health was a topic on everyone’s mind. It was like, ‘Okay, I’m cutting myself off today.’ Subconsciously it was something I’ve always done.”

The seven-time Wimbledon champion, who retired in September 2022, noted that now that she has realized the importance of putting yourself first – “especially mentally” – she has “taken moments off.”

“I have serious boundaries, and I don’t let anyone cross those boundaries with my time,” she revealed. “And it’s so bad because I really don’t do anything for myself. I’m terrible at that! I’ve said it over and over again, “I’m working on it!” But more or less, at least prioritize what I need to do, and then if I’m disabled, I’m disabled.

In August 2018, Williams revealed that she is struggling with “postpartum emotions” after withdrawing from the Rogers Cup for “personal reasons.” (Williams welcomed daughter Alexis Olympia in September 2017 with Ohanian, 40.)

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Legend! Serena Williams has overcome every obstacle on her way to becoming one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Perhaps even more impressive is that she now combines perfecting her game with raising her daughter Olympia. Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in September 1981. She started playing tennis at the age of four after she, her sister […]

“Last week was not easy for me,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. “Not only was I accepting some difficult personal things, but I was just in trouble. I especially had the feeling that I was not a good mother.”

In a discussion with Anna Wintour in February 2020, Williams revealed at New York Fashion Week that her definition of a hero had changed since becoming a mother.

“My heroes are mothers because women are superheroes,” Williams said via Time. “To have a baby and then two or three weeks later have to go to work or work 9 to 5… I’m lucky that I don’t have to do that.”