Why tennis legend Serena Williams' comment on hotel decor has left the internet divided

Tennis legend Serena Williams has left the internet divided following her remark on the choice of decor at a hotel room in New York City, with some netizens criticising for being overly sensitive.

Earlier this week, the 23-time Grand Slam champion had expressed unease over a cotton plant arrangement in the hallway of a hotel at the ‘Big Apple’ in a video posted on her Instagram account. “How do we feel about cotton as decoration? Personally, for me, it doesn’t feel great,” Williams said in the video.

While some offered support to the 44-year-old due to the cotton plant’s association with slavery in the US, there were also those who didn’t quite resonate with Williams’ comment.

Williams questioned for cotton-related artwork at her residence

Williams’ comment further came under the scanner after an image of a cotton-related sculpture at her residence went viral online. The artwork titled Monument for a Promise by artist Radcliffe Bailey features a donkey, a suitcase and a mound of cotton.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who has been married to Williams since 2017, had first shared an image of the artwork back in 2020. With the image doing the rounds on social media following Williams’ remark, Ohanian stepped in to offer clarification on the matter.

“Folks entitled to have their opinions, but to use owning Radcliffe Bailey’s Monument for a Promise as some kind of a ‘gotchya’ is so breathtakingly stupid - there is some very obvious symbolism of the cotton in the artwork,” Ohanian wrote in a post on X.

Williams, who retired from professional tennis in August 2022 in order to spend more time with her family, had also been in the news recently for adopting a unique method of losing weight . Williams had revealed that she had a hard time shedding weight after becoming a mother and took the help of GLP-1 drugs to reach her desired figure.

Telehealth company Ro took this opportunity to sign the tennis icon as their celebrity patient ambassador for its weight-loss treatments.