Serena Williams dropped the curtain on her weight-loss journey and revealed she’s been using Zepbound injections since early 2024 to help shed pounds after giving birth to her second daughter, Adira.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion told People she turned to the medication after struggling to lose weight post-pregnancy, despite sticking to a strict workout and nutrition routine.
“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 said. “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.”
Williams, 43, said her weight concerns began after having her first daughter, Alexis Olympia, in 2017. The same issue returned after she gave birth to Adira in August 2023.
She told Vogue, “I would always get to a certain point on the scale, but I could never get below that. That’s when I decided that it was time to try something different and got on the GLP-1 with Ro.”
Since starting the once-a-week injections, Williams has dropped 31 pounds. Zepbound, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, is typically prescribed for type 2 diabetes but has become increasingly popular for weight management.
The medication was approved by the FDA for weight loss in late 2023.
Williams emphasized that the medication didn’t replace her healthy lifestyle. She continues to work out and eat clean, crediting the injections for helping her break through a plateau.
“I feel like my old self,” she said, adding she feels “sexier” and “more confident.”
Wanting to be upfront about her transformation, Williams said she went public to challenge the criticism surrounding GLP-1 medications.
“I feel like a lot of people have this stigma on GLP-1s and say things like, ‘Oh, lazy people do it,’ or ‘If you’re working hard enough, you don’t need that,’” she said. “I know for a fact from my experience that it’s simply not true. Sometimes you need help.”
Now serving as a celebrity patient ambassador for Ro, the telehealth company that prescribed her Zepbound, Williams appears in a new campaign where she self-administers the injection on camera.
Her partnership with Ro began after she finished breastfeeding Adira in early 2024.