Serena Williams Shares Rare Video of Her Father Richard With Daughter Olympia
Serena Williams just shared a video of her father Richard with her daughter Olympia. The tennis superstar posted the video on her Instagram account and indicated that it's a "rare sighting" of her father. The post comes as the movie King Richard hits theatres and HBO Max on Nov. 19.
"A rare sighting, the one and only G.O.A.T. still motivating ... King Richard, but I call him daddy," Williams wrote. In the video, Richard was filming Olympia riding her bicycle down the sidewalk. As Richard, 79, is filming Olympia, 4, he is coaching her up just like Serena and Venus Williams when they were younger. Richard is portrayed by Will Smith in the upcoming film which takes a look at how the Williams sisters rose to tennis stardom.
Earlier this month, Smith and the Willams sisters spoke to Entertainment Weekly about King Richard. Smith talked about what made him want to take on the role of Richard, which is he "reminds me a lot of my father. It was that same generation — men that used to fix everything with their hands. I understood what it was like to live at the edge of survival and to try to sustain a dream." Venus spoke on her reaction to Smith wanting to a movie about their lives."
"When we heard that Will wanted to do it, it was like, 'Oh my God this movie is going to be the real deal.' Whatever film he's in, it's the real deal. We got the sense of this is gonna be big, this is gonna be a serious film," Venus said. "I love that it captured the innocence — the innocence we still hang on to, actually. It's kind of difficult for me to say, 'Oh, this film shows me.' Because me is Serena. Me is my sisters. And there's no me without her, and I could have never done what I've been able to achieve on the court without her because I was also watching her and learning,"
Venus and Serena Williams are two of the best tennis players of all time. Combined, the duo has won 30 Grand Slam singles and 28 Grand Slam doubles championships. They have also won a combined eight Olympic gold medals.