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Serena Williams brought the laughs when she hosted the 2024 ESPY Awards on Thursday, July 11.
The tennis star, 42, poked fun at Travis Kelce’s romance with Taylor Swift during her opening monologue at the awards show, which was held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
“Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs. This year, Patrick Mahomes and Taylor Swift’s boyfriend won a Super Bowl,” she joked as Chiefs coach Andy Reid was spotted in the audience, referring to the nickname Kelce, 34, earned after his romance with Swift, also 34, went public last fall.
Williams teased: “Travis and Taylor reportedly spent $100,000 a day on their romance. That’s a lot of money. That’s what I’ve been told [Boston Celtics shooting guard] Jaylen Brown spends on his beard. It’s very shiny. I like it though.”
She also joked about “another memorable moment in sports this year” when LeBron James’ son Bronny James was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers, which makes them the first father-son duo to play for the same NBA team.
“I truly hope that Bronny has a long career, so long that we see his hairline recede and then miraculously un-recede like dad,” Williams said, getting a big laugh from the crowd.
The tennis champion then took a moment to toast her own success, which includes the Oscar-winning film about her journey, King Richard. “Will Smith played my dad. He was so good it in, he won an Oscar, even after slapping Chris Rock,” she teased, referring to Smith’s altercation with Rock, 59, during the 2022 awards show when Smith, 55, got upset over Rock’s joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and slapped him on stage.
Williams added, “I was like, ‘Dang, Will, you gotta come out of character.’”
Williams concluded by giving her longtime friends Meghan Markle and Prince Harry for attending the awards show.
Before taking the stage, Williams walked the red carpet with her husband, Alexis Ohanian, and their eldest daughter, Olympia, 6. The trio posed for photos and stole all the attention from the crowd in Hollywood. The couple’s youngest daughter, Adira, 11 months, did not make the trip.
Williams’s hosting gig comes nearly two years after she announced her retirement from tennis in the September 2022 issue of Vogue after winning 23 Grand Slam titles. She explained at the time that she was stepping away from the sport to focus on her family.
“Believe me, I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family,” she wrote in her Vogue essay. “I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family. Maybe I’d be more of a Tom Brady if I had that opportunity.”
Williams and her husband, Ohanian, tied the knot in November 2017 and welcomed daughters Olympia and Adira in September 2017 and August 2023, respectively.
In June, Williams opened up about adapting to her new normal amid her retirement.
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“It’s fun. It’s different. It’s a life I’ve never experienced,” she told The New York Times. “You have to understand: For my entire life, since I can remember, it’s been about one thing. I don’t know anything else. And so this is all new to me. It’s like a whole new career. And of course I prefer playing tennis, but that’s because I’ve done it my whole life. Of course you prefer doing something that you’ve done since you could walk. That’s kind of rare in a career. Usually people work to get a career, but I’ve been doing this since I could walk. So definitely a different feeling.”
Williams is still figuring out what her future looks like — some of her recent projects include a venture-capital fund and her own makeup line — but she confessed that she misses tennis more than she expected.
“I like that I miss tennis,” she said. “I would hate to be like, ‘Oh, I hated that so much.’ That would be such an awful, sad thing for me. Because tennis meant so much to me. And I didn’t realize it meant that much to me, to be honest. I didn’t realize that I would have such an amazing relationship with tennis after it was all said and done. It’s a good miss. It’s like a nostalgia. I love that.”
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