Serena Williams stole the show Monday night at the Met Gala, as the tennis star announced that she is pregnant with her second child.
She and husband Alexis Ohanian are already parents to 5-year-old daughter Olympia.
Williams announced the news on Instagram ahead of the red carpet for the annual fashion event. She shared a photo carousel in which she is featured in one picture holding her baby bump. The post was captioned: “Was so excited when Anna Wintour invited the 3 of us to the Met Gala.”
The news comes after Williams announced her “evolution” away from tennis in Vogue last August. In that first-person essay, she also shared hopes of expanding their family with another baby.
She “never thought about having kids” early on in her career, she wrote in Vogue. And while she says she figured that she would “have people taking care of it 24/7” if she ever did have a baby, she’s been “an incredibly hands-on mother” with Olympia.
“In five years, Olympia has only spent one 24-hour period away from me,” she wrote. “This past year, while I was recovering from a hamstring injury, I got to pick her up from school four or five days a week, and I always looked forward to seeing her face light up when she walked out of the building and saw me waiting there for her. The fact is that nothing is a sacrifice for me when it comes to Olympia.”
Williams has also been vocal about her experience of giving birth to Olympia in 2017, as she dealt with life-threatening blood clots following an emergency cesarean section.
“It gives me a lot of reason beyond what I do, and so, it’s really important,” she told People in January 2021 of her husband and daughter. “I’ve been so focused on my career my whole life, but when I had a family and got married, I realized that there’s so much more to life. And that was great.”
Also in attendance were Eileen Gu and Brittney Griner. It was Griner’s first Met Gala, while Gu was making her second-straight appearance.