Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
A STAR IS BORN Serena Williams, photographed in Highland Beach, Florida.
Last January, on the eve of the
Australian Open, Serena Williams handed her fiancé, Alexis Ohanian, a paper bag
containing six positive pregnancy tests. It was just the latest surprise in an
unlikely pairing: the world’s greatest tennis player and the geek co-founder of
Reddit. From their first date—a magical six hours in Paris—to their plans for
the baby’s arrival, this is the full love story.
Photographs by Annie
Leibovitz
Styled by Jessica Diehl
June 27, 2017 7:00 AM
his is a love story.
It wasn’t seamless, starry eyes at first light. There was a
discovery, unexpected and shocking. There were moments of really getting pissed
and the standard irritation that comes when one half of the whole kept leaving
the suitcase in the hallway. But there were also moments of unplanned intimacy
that is the only true kind of intimacy in a love story, soft touches and
laughter and absurdity, because you need absurdity in a love story, since love
is slightly absurd anyway, a feeling that, like eternity, is indefinable.
Which leads us, on the surface at least, to the seemingly
mismatched pairing of 35-year-old Serena Williams and her fiancé, 34-year-old
Alexis Ohanian. She is the beyond remarkable tennis player, although all
superlatives are pointless. He is in the high cotton of high tech as the
co-founder of the Web site Reddit, which has 234 million unique monthly users.
They became engaged
last December, after first meeting roughly a year and a half earlier, then
found out in January that Serena was pregnant. They will be married in the fall
after the birth of the baby.
With 23 grand-slam wins on the
women’s pro tennis tour spanning nearly three decades—from her first, at 17
years old, in September of 1999, to her latest, at 35, in January of 2017, and
the most in the open era—Serena is in the heart of every conversation
concerning the best athlete of her time. “If I were a man, then it wouldn’t be
any sort of question,” she told me. She may well be right, a society still
conditioned to believe that men are better than women in everything except the
superfluous.
Alexis, on the other hand, had never
seen a tennis match until he met Serena, in May of 2015 in Rome. He knew so
little about the game that the photo he excitedly posted
on Instagram of her playing her first match in the Italian Open showed her
foot faulting.
Serena plays a sport that requires
the mental focus of instantaneously letting go of losing points and moving on
because there are a lot of excruciating ones no matter how great you are,
continual regrouping and re-inventing: dwell on them, you lose confidence; lose
confidence and you lose. She is also superbly conditioned, given that a female
tennis player may run about three miles in a match without the luxury of coming
out of the game because you feel winded or lost too much money gambling with
teammates the night before on the charter and would rather mope on the bench.
Alexis’s athletic history amounted
to the level of a very gangly defensive tackle for Howard High School in
Ellicott City, Maryland, far more interested in science fairs and programming
and building Web sites. His skill at tennis is not one of potential; when
Serena offered to give him a lesson, he turned it down so he could tell his
friends that he once turned down a lesson with Serena Williams.
Serena has been romantically linked
in the past to such rappers as Drake and Common. Once, when she and Alexis went
to a movie in San Francisco, he got up from his seat to get popcorn, earning
the admiration of the kid at the counter.
Reddit,
Rome, and rats? Watch the video below for a primer on the unlikely beginning of
Serena Williams’s and Alexis Ohanian’s romance.
“Yo, dude, that wasn’t Serena Williams, was it?”
“Come on. Me? Really?”
“You’re right.”
Before we get to how Serena and Alexis actually met, or a
better sense of who he really is, or her reaction to the pregnancy and how she
told him, it’s probably wise to spend a little time with Serena Williams to
give our love story some context.
Let’s just get this out of the way right now: Serena Williams is the best tennis player in history, with an aggregate winning percentage of 85.76 percent and 72 tournaments won on the Women’s Tennis Association tour (including the 23 grand-slam victories in 29 singles finals, not to mention 14 doubles finals with sister Venus). She has earned $84,463,131 in career prize money and nearly twice that in endorsements and appearance fees.
Thirty is the point of no return for most female tennis
players, but Serena has only gotten better since, with 10 grand-slam wins and
almost running the four-tournament table—the Australian Open, the French Open,
Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open—in 2015. She has been ranked No. 1 in the world
longer than anyone other than Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova, and is the
obvious favorite to win any tournament she chooses to play in.
But then an unforeseen discovery left both Serena and
Alexis in shock. Which is perfect for our love story, since a love story
without drama is just another story.
January 2017
It began to unfold roughly a week before the beginning of
the Australian Open, in Melbourne, last January, not that anyone would have
known. After playing poorly in her first match of the year, in which she felt
she had missed too many backhands, she went to the practice court and for two
and a half to three hours hit 2,500 of them, by her estimation. If she missed
one, she started over. She did roughly the same the next practice day.
But she felt a little different physically. She had
unexpectedly thrown up at one point and her breasts had enlarged. She thought
it might be hormonal. But her friend Jessica Steindorff immediately suspected
something else and suggested a pregnancy test. Serena thought it was ludicrous.
Jessica worked on her for two days until Serena relented,
and so Jessica went to a pharmacy and bought a pregnancy kit.
“I’ll take it just because (a) to prove you wrong and (b)
because it’s fun, whatever. It’s like a joke. Why not?”
GRANDSTAND “I don’t know what to do with a baby. I have nothing....
I’ve done absolutely nothing for the baby room.”
Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
That Friday, as Serena was doing her
hair and makeup for an event sponsored by the lingerie company Berlei, where
she is a spokesperson for its line of sports bras, she took the test in the
bathroom. “I put it down. I went back to finishing hair and makeup, was
laughing, talking. I was getting the styling done. An hour and a half later, I
went back to the bathroom and I totally forgot about it because it was
impossible for me. . . . So I went back to get dressed and I went back in the
bathroom and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that test.’ ”
Jessica shrieked in delight at the
results. Serena, as she put it, “did a double take and my heart dropped. Like
literally it dropped.
“Oh my God, this can’t be—I’ve got
to play a tournament,” said Serena. “How am I going to play the Australian
Open? I had planned on winning Wimbledon this year.”
But never underestimate the Serena
Stubbornness, as legendary in certain circles as her first serve. Beleaguered
Jessica went back to the hotel pharmacy and bought five more test kits to
further convince her.
Test No. 2: Positive. Test No. 3:
Positive. Test No. 4: Positive. Test No. 5: Positive. Test No. 6: Positive.
Which is an opportune time in our
love story to bring in the father and rewind to the moment Serena met Alexis
and Alexis met Serena.
May 2015
Although in his early 30s, there is something still
gushingly boyish about Alexis, six feet five inches and lean, with the moppish
hairstyle that college tour guides favor as they extol all the wonders of the
campus, including the mail room and the six-shooter cereal dispenser. In his
case the corporate offices of Reddit, in the Union Square area of San Francisco,
which look oddly unfinished—as if to say, Why be bothered with such
trivialities in the hip high-tech culture?—twentysomething savants engrossed by
their computer screen with heads slightly hunched, the way people used to look
when they were engrossed by books, searching for the next Pied Piperian
breakthrough and likely finding it before lunch is served on the second floor
from a line of stainless-steel buffet trays winking and nodding with nutritious
options.
Alexis was born in Brooklyn and raised in the nationally
known planned community of Columbia, Maryland. Reddit’s origins go back to 2004
during his junior year at the University of Virginia, when he took an L.S.A.T.
prep exam for law school, got about midway through the first section, and went
to the Waffle House on Route 29 in Charlottesville to have waffles. He realized
he did not want to be a lawyer, just as he had also realized that his real love
was programming and building Web sites. He teamed with Steve Huffman, an
engineering major, whom he had met the first day of freshman year.
Williams and fiancé Alexis Ohanian,
photographed in Highland Beach.
Photograph by Annie Leibovitz.
They came up with the concept for
Reddit, a Web site self-described as “the front page of the Internet,” in which
users interact and respond to a myriad of topics that interest them. The number
of users went up rapidly, and, in 2006, 16 months after launching it, he and
Huffman, still in their early 20s, sold the company to Condé Nast (which also
publishes this magazine) for a reported $10 to $15 million. The price was a
fraction of what Reddit has been estimated to be worth today: $4 billion.
Alexis sheepishly admitted that they may have sold the company a little early.
He left Reddit and went to Armenia,
where his father’s family is originally from, to do volunteer work. He wrote a
book called Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not
Managed, and traveled the United States for five months to promote it on a
bus that went to 80 universities because he wanted to be on a bus that traveled
around the country. He became a leading voice in stopping government
intervention in the Internet. He helped invent the travel Web site Hipmunk.
Several years ago, he and Huffman returned to Reddit as executive chairman and
chief executive officer, respectively, the company once again independent.
lexis and Serena met the way two people do in the best love stories: by chance. Actually, it runs a little deeper than that because, let’s face it, Alexis was initially considered by Serena and the others she was with to be an irritant they were hoping would just get the hint and go away.
The location was the Cavalieri hotel, in Rome, on May 12,
2015. That night Serena was about to play her first match in the Italian Open.
She is not a morning person and usually doesn’t eat breakfast, but the buffet
offering at the Cavalieri was beyond extravagant and Jessica was champing at
the bit, so they went to try it along with longtime agent Jill Smoller, of
William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, and Zane Haupt, who handles some
business-development opportunities for Serena.
The buffet had closed down five minutes before the group
got there, so their only recourse was to go to the pool area and sit at a table
for four and order breakfast. Other people on Serena’s team were expected at an
adjoining table.
The night before, Alexis had stayed up until one or two in
the morning drinking at a café with Kristen Wiig and friends—Wiig was in Rome
shooting Zoolander 2, and he knew her cousin, so he introduced
himself. He passed out when he got back to the hotel, where he was staying for
the Festival of Media Global conference, and was slightly hungover when he came
down to breakfast. He too headed out to the pool area. Which is when he decided
without thinking about it to sit at the table next to Serena, his only interest
to get coffee and food and put on his headphones and work on his laptop. Which
struck Serena and the others as a pain in the neck, since Alexis had a choice
of other empty tables.
“I knew it was coming,” she says of the proposal. “I was like, ‘Serena, you’re ready. This is what you want.’ ”
“This big guy comes and he just plops down at the table
next to us, and I’m like, ‘Huh! All these tables and he’s sitting here?,’ ”
Serena remembered. Alexis recalled that the pool area was “not quite so empty.”
Then came the quintessential Australian accent of Zane
Haupt. “Aye, mate! There’s a rat. There’s a rat by your table. You don’t want
to sit there.”
Serena started laughing.
“We were trying to get him to move and get out of there,” said Serena. “He kind of refuses and he looks at us. And he’s like, ‘Is there really a rat here?’ ” At which point Serena remembers the first words she ever said to him.
“No, we just don’t want you sitting there. We’re going to
use that table.”
“I’m from Brooklyn. I see rats all the time.”
“Oh, you’re not afraid of rats?”
“No.”
Which is when Serena suggested a compromise and invited
Alexis to join them.
Which is when Alexis became “98 percent sure” that the
person asking about his rat tolerance was Serena Williams. He knew generally
about her accomplishments on the court. But Alexis, an avid pro-football-and-
basketball fan, had “never watched a match on television or in real life. It was literally the sport—even if ESPN was announcing tennis updates, I would just zone out. . . . I really had no respect for tennis.”
He did keep this to himself.
Serena asked about the tech conference and whom Alexis had
come to hear speak. He later described the question as a “softball lobbed over
the plate” that even he could hit out of the park.
“Actually, I’m here to speak.”
Alexis told her about Reddit. Serena knew nothing about it
but acted as if she did, and said she had been on it earlier in the morning.
To which Alexis asked, “Oh, were you? What do you like
about it?”
To which Serena gave a very long “Wellllll . . . ” and was
saved by Jessica and Jill chiming in.
To which Serena gave a very long “Wellllll . . . ” and was saved by Jessica and Jill chiming in.
Serena Williams has long been queen of the tennis court, but her success also extends to business, fashion, and philanthropy. Watch the video below to see some of her biggest career achievements.
Serena started asking him about her Web site and if she should have an app. Alexis thought, “This is an interesting, charming, beautiful woman.” But he had just come out of a five-year relationship and was still slightly hungover and “I was not thinking beyond ‘Yeah sure, I can give you some feedback on your Web site.’ ”
Serena thought he was interested in Jessica. But she did
give him her number—she later said it was only because she might have more
tech-related questions. He was eminently likable, and Jill, after finding out
he
was a client of WME for his speaking gigs, invited him to the match that night.
Serena had an injury and did not play well but still won.
Afterward she and her team got on a van to head back to the hotel. Alexis was
on board as well and Serena freaked out a little bit.
“I see this super-tall guy get in our [van], and I was
like, ‘Oh my God, Jill. Tell me what’s wrong. Do I have another stalker? Why is
Rome sending
Tell me what’s wrong. Do I have another stalker? Why is Rome sending personal security with me. . . . And she’s like, ‘No, that’s Alexis.’ I remembered his name because it was a unique name. I was like, ‘Oh, I remember.’ ”
After recognizing him, she invited Alexis to join her team
for dinner that night. It didn’t work out. But something was in the air, and as
our love story continues, there’s only one place to find out just what.
After Serena won the Australian Open, the next big
tournament was the second leg of the grand-slam circuit, the French Open,
After Serena won the Australian Open, the next big tournament was the second leg of the grand-slam circuit, the French Open, at Roland-Garros, later that month. She texted Alexis that she was bummed that he had not seen her play well in Rome and proposed that maybe he should come to Paris. To Alexis, it was one of those classically inverse L.A.-style invites that are extended because you are sure it will never happen.
But Alexis did come to Paris for the weekend. Not that he
had any particular expectations. “Even if she blows me off and we don’t even
hang out, I’m still going to have an amazing time in Paris, and I’ll have an
even
out, I’m still going to have an amazing time in Paris, and I’ll have an even better story for all my childhood friends when I was like, ‘Yeah, I went to Paris for a weekend. I was supposed to meet up with Serena Williams, she blew me off, but I’ve got other friends there, and we had a great time.’ ”
The tournament, which Serena would ultimately win, had not
started yet. So Alexis and Serena got into an Uber near Serena’s apartment and
drove toward the Eiffel Tower. They stopped at a zoo Serena knew about called
La Ménagerie in the Jardin des Plantes, then at a stall selling candies. Serena
became excited, like a small child, and Alexis bought her some.
They just walked and roamed, Serena placing her faith in
Alexis because he was a tried-and-true traveler, where all you needed was a
backpack and the only rules were none. Alexis also sensed that this was not
something Serena ever got to do as a worldwide celebrity, so much of her life
being about regimen and glamorous scenes where acolytes circled like fireflies.
For six hours they walked all over, the magic of the day multiplied by the
city’s heartbreak of beauty, which only made it more beautiful.
April 2016
The day of his birthday, April 24, Alexis went to the
Carousel Restaurant in Little Armenia in Los Angeles with his grandparents.
Serena and he FaceTimed. She was calling to say happy birthday, which might not
sound like a big deal but was because she is a Jehovah’s Witness and part of
the religion is not to celebrate birthdays. She was doing something she
normally would not do, reaching beyond, telling him on the phone how wonderful
their lives together had been.
Alexis knew then he wanted to marry her, not simply out of
happiness or compatibility. She was helping him become the best version of
himself because of her own work ethic and focus, with millions watching and the
expectation of the public that she should win every time, what Serena herself
described as carrying “three pyramids” on her shoulder. He thought he worked
hard—it is part of the romance of high tech that everyone works 18 hours a day
and then curls up under the desk for a few hours’ sleep with their laptop as
teddy bear and pacifier—but he realized it was nothing compared with Serena.
I felt like a door had been opened to a person who made me want to be my best self. . . . I find myself just wanting to be better by simply being around her because of the standard she holds.”
December 2016
Alexis decided he would surprise Serena by proposing to her
on December 10 in virtually the same spot he had first met her: the Cavalieri.
It was an intricate and tactical plan, several months in the making. Serena was
scheduled to play in an exhibition in India, so Jill Smoller talked her into
making a stopover on the way back and spending the night at the Cavalieri. Then
the exhibition was canceled. There was no reason for Serena to go to Italy.
Plus, she was beginning training for the Australian Open, and when Serena gets
close to a grand-slam event, practice becomes a personal Hacksaw Ridge—fury,
broken rackets, sometimes tears. Now going to Rome?
Alexis scrambled to enlist the help of others. Serena’s
executive assistant, Dakota Baynham, secretly packed her bags. Tommy Hilfiger
did a major
solid by scheduling a meeting at her house in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida,
to discuss some fashion-related items so she would be there to get picked up
for the airport. Jill came to the house and told her that she had to go to
Italy because Alexis wanted her there under the guise of a spontaneous trip,
much like the one they had taken to Disney World a few weeks earlier.
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