Serena Williams and weight-loss drugs: Why her glossy GLP-1 endorsement feels like a sellout

Dubai: Serena Williams, the fiercest tennis athlete of our time, has built a career out of smashing stereotypes and pulverizing opponents. She redefined what strength looks like — powerful thighs, unflinching grit, unapologetic presence.

But now? She’s peddling weight-loss injections like they’re the newest shade of lip gloss. And sorry, that hits differently — and not in a good way.

Let me be clear: I’m not villainising or demonising Serena for choosing a weight-loss drug. Your body, your rules, your health journey.

If she wants to explore GLP-1 injections under the close supervision of world-class doctors, fine. That’s her prerogative.

But the problem isn’t Serena the woman — it’s Serena the brand ambassador. Because her new glossy ad campaign makes it look like slimness is the final trophy, the ultimate validation.

Forget Wimbledon, forget Grand Slams, forget the fact that she is arguably the most disciplined athlete alive — the message now is: you’re not enough until you’re thin or skinny.

That is a dangerous, insidious narrative to beam into millions of homes, especially for young girls who once saw her as proof that greatness wasn’t confined to a dress size. My 14-year-old daughter deserves to grow up seeing Serena holding her head high, not a syringe to her now-shrunk thighs.

Of course, many critics will argue — and rightly so — that Serena has endured decades of racial stereotyping and body-shaming as a Black woman. Her body has been dissected and demeaned in ways her white peers never faced. From the “too muscular” comments to the endless scrutiny of her curves, she was constantly cast as too much, too big, too different.

She bore that weight, literally and figuratively, and she shattered those ceilings by proving that power could look like her. Which is exactly why this move stings so much. Instead of standing firm in that legacy, she’s now endorsing the very narrative that her career once defied: that smaller is better, and thinner is the prize.

It’s the same whiplash we saw with Kim Kardashian — a woman who built an empire off celebrating her curves, only to turn around and give us Skims, a line of pricey underwear designed to smooth, slim, and shrink us into more “acceptable” versions of ourselves. Serena joining that club feels like betrayal dressed up in brand partnership gloss.

And I’m not the only one who finds that heartbreaking. Alex Light, the British body image campaigner, put it best in The Independent: “Yet to see someone of her calibre promoting weight-loss drugs shows an unnerving societal shift.”

She calls Serena out for glamorising an injection as though it were a lifestyle accessory, and I’m with her. Serena was supposed to be our antidote to diet culture, not its new poster girl.

Remember when governments finally slammed the brakes on celebrities selling cigarettes and booze? In the U.S., tobacco ads were kicked off TV and radio back in 1971, and in India today, superstars like Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan can face massive fines for peddling alcohol or sly “surrogate” ads.

Why? Because we collectively agreed there’s a line you don’t cross when your fame is used to sell products that wreck people’s health. But now, Serena’s here glamorising weekly injections like it’s self-care Sunday. If hawking cigarettes was once the ultimate sellout, what do we call it when the greatest tennis player alive is out here shilling syringes with a smile?

The casual commodification of these drugs is equally chilling. GLP-1s are not harmless spa treatments you pick up at a counter between your vitamin C serum and collagen powder. They come with unknown long-term risks and unsettling side effects.

Yet Serena presents it all with studio lighting and a breezy “I feel light!” caption. That isn’t empowerment; that’s endorsement. And yes, it reeks of selling out.

The privilege gap makes it worse. Serena has access to the best doctors, elite monitoring, and a medical safety net that most women can never dream of. For the average woman, these drugs can spiral into health nightmares if not carefully supervised. To present them as casual lifestyle accessories is not just irresponsible, it’s dangerous.

And she’s not alone in this troubling trend.

Khloé Kardashian has been accused of fueling the Ozempic craze with her suspiciously rapid transformations, even if she rolls her eyes at the speculation. Elon Musk treats his Wegovy injections like a fun bio-hacking party trick, tweeting about them with Silicon Valley bravado. Sharon Osbourne has admitted to shedding pounds with Ozempic, only to later warn about how frail it left her. And Chelsea Handler once confessed she didn’t even realize she was on it until her doctor spelled it out. That’s the cultural whiplash we’re in: on one hand, we clap for body positivity and inclusivity, while on the other, we glamorise an injection that essentially tells women, “Thinness is still the golden ticket.”

Serena didn’t need to join this chorus. She’s a billionaire, an icon, a trailblazer. She was proof that greatness isn’t measured by a number on a scale. Now she’s hawking injections like the rest of Hollywood’s thin-at-all-costs brigade. Was it worth the paycheck? Was it worth telling women that even being the greatest athlete alive isn’t enough unless you shrink yourself down a few sizes?

Serena, I admire your grit, your dominance, your fearlessness. But this endorsement? It’s sloppy, it’s tone-deaf, and it betrays the very women who once looked to you as living proof that power comes in all shapes. You didn’t need to trade rackets for needles.

You being in a thin body might be giving you happiness (more power to you), but selling it like the best thing since sliced bread — oh wait, you can’t eat that — is soul-crushing and bone-chilling.