Serena Williams has addressed speculation that her Super Bowl appearance was intended to embarrass Drake.
In February, the Grand Slam champion, 41, made a surprise on-stage cameo at Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show. Her appearance came while Lamar was performing his diss track about the Canadian rapper “Not Like Us,” with whom he’d been engaged in a bitter feud.
Fans thought Lamar bringing out Williams was a direct dig at Drake, as he was romantically linked to the tennis star briefly in 2015.
However, Williams denied these suggestions in an interview with Time magazine for its 100 Most Influential People issue.
“Absolutely not,” she told the publication. “I would never do that. And that was sad, that anyone would ever think that. I respect how they could. Obviously I can see how someone would think that. But absolutely not.”
She added about Drake: “I have never had negative feelings towards him. We’ve known him for so many years.”
Reports about Drake and Williams first emerged in 2011 but intensified in 2015 after they were spotted kissing at a restaurant in Cincinnati following Williams’s win at the WTA tournament.
Although Williams never publicly confirmed the relationship, Drake sang about their romance in his 2016 song “Too Good.”
“I’m too good to you / I’m way too good to you / You take my love for granted / I just don’t understand it,” he sings in the track.
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During a conversation with his mother, Sandi Graham, in 2024, Drake officially confirmed that the tune was about Williams. “No, I get heavy on a couple joints, but this is more about me and Serena,” he said in the clip, before Graham responded: “I gather that!”
During the interview with Time, Williams also addressed ESPN star Stephen A. Smith’s thoughts on her viral crip-walk dance at the Super Bowl. Smith previously questioned her for “trolling” her rumored ex, Drake, and claimed that if he were married to the athlete, he’d split up with her because of the Super Bowl show.
“I thought it was hilarious,” she said about Smith’s remarks. “He’s allowed to have his personal opinion. But did you see my husband’s remark? It was so eloquent.”
Ohanian responded to Smith with a thread of criticism that his wife has previously received for doing the crip-walking dance at Wimbledon in 2012 after beating Maria Sharapova.
“Some of y’all have no idea how criticized Serena was for this same dance at Wimbledon 13 years ago and it shows,” Ohanian wrote on X in February. “This is bigger than the music.”
