MadameNoire
Source: MICHAEL BRADLEY / Getty
One of the interesting things about being a public figure is that everyone knows your name. If a fan just so happens to spot you out in public, they’re sure to call it to get your attention, an autograph, a selfie — the whole nine yards. The only problem for tennis ace Serena Williams is that her daughter, Alexis, Jr., hears her name called often and has picked up the habit of calling her “Serena” like the rest of us. She can’t seem to get her to stop.
Williams recently shared the conundrum she’s facing when speaking to press during the WTA Tour. She joked that she’s not even sure how the 3-year-old learned her name in the first place.
“I know she knows I play tennis, and I know she knows my name. It’s really weird,” she said. “She’ll be, like, Serena. How do you know my name is Serena?”
Alexis seems to go back and forth, though. She’s cheered on her famous mom in the stands at tournaments and been quoted by her father as saying “That my mama! Go mama!” But it sounds like she still tests whether or not she can get away with dropping a “Serena” on the sports legend from time to time, which drives Williams a little bit up the wall.
“Or she’ll see me on TV and either say ‘Mama’ or ‘Serena.’ I’m like, You can’t say ‘Serena,’ you have to call me ‘Mama,’” she said. “It’s really weird, I don’t know what’s going on in her little head. She knows something’s up. People like ask for autographs or go, get super excited and she’s like, They’re here for Serena. So she knows something. I just don’t know what.”
Sounds like she knows that her mom is a very important person to a number of people, and she too wants to occasionally refer to her the way the world does. Sounds super cute. Just not to Williams.
