Fans expressed their disappointment in Serena Williams after she revealed she lost more than 30 pounds with the help of a weight-loss medicine.
On Thursday, the GLP-1 medicine company Ro shared a joint post on Instagram promoting the tennis champion’s partnership.
In the clip, Williams, 43, appeared to inject herself with the weekly medicine, which she claims her body “needed” after having two kids.
Fans took to the comments section to express their disdain with the athlete’s choice to use the drugs to achieve her current body.
“As an athlete and an influencer, it’s a shame that you’re reiterating the narrative that you need to take medication to be healthy and achieve an acceptable standard of beauty. This video made me really sad and disappointed,” wrote one user.
“‘After kids this is the medicine my body needed.’ Needed? Fantastic, now we can undo all the progression we made on letting women know its ok to take time, recover and get back in shape or not to,” added another.
“The messaging here is so wrong coming from an athlete like her and very dangerous for society,” commented a third person.
“You can put whatever you want in your body but let’s not call it healthcare! This is so disturbing to me coming from a former elite athlete,” said a fourth netizen.
A fifth person claimed Williams is sending a “terrible message to our youth,” especially female athletes.
Page Six has reached out to Williams’ rep for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Earlier this week, the mom of two shocked fans when she revealed was the latest celebrity to use weight-loss drugs.
“I feel great,” she told People. “I feel really good and healthy. I feel light physically and light mentally.”
Williams explained that she began having weight struggles in 2017, after giving birth to her oldest daughter, Alexis Olympia, via an emergency C-section.
“I never was able to get to the weight I needed to be, no matter what I did, no matter how much I trained,” she told the outlet.
“It was crazy because I’d never been in a place like that in my life where I worked so hard, ate so healthy and could never get down to where I needed to be at.”
The four-time Olympic gold medalist said she researched Ro and decided to move forward with the weekly injections six months after her second daughter, Adira, was born, in August 2023.