This Grand Slam champ slammed her royal mates — but it was all in jest.
Serena Williams poked entertaining at pals Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the 2024 ESPY Awards on Thursday evening, accusing them of overshadowing her overall look at the party.
The tennis legend hosted the awards show at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, wherever Harry was getting honored with the Pat Tillman Award for Service.
Getting to the stage, Williams advised the group that the Sussexes were being in the audience, right before stating: “Please, Harry and Meghan, check out not to breathe way too a great deal tonight.”
“This is my night time and I don’t want to be overshadowed by accusations you guys are having up too considerably oxygen,” she additional sassed.
Harry and Markle have been viewed smiling right after Williams made the remarks, showing to choose the joke in their stride.
Markle has been good friends with Williams for many years, and the athlete attended the pair’s royal wedding day again in 2018.
Before in the evening, they posed alongside the tennis celebrity on the awards show’s red carpet.
And later on in the night, Harry took to the phase to get the Pat Tillman Award for Services for his armed forces working experience and function on the Invictus Game titles.
The award is named immediately after Pat Tillman — the ex-NFL participant who enlisted in the US Army right after 9/11 and was killed in Afghanistan in 2004.
Quite a few folks objected to the prince remaining named as the receiver of the award, including Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman.
“I am shocked as to why they would choose such a controversial and divisive personal to obtain the award,” she advised the Everyday Mail last month. “There are recipients that are much a lot more fitting. People today are doing the job in the veteran community that are doing incredible points to help veterans.”
And whilst Harry was rumored to have been considering declining the coveted recognition, he in the end determined to settle for it.