Serena Williams has a touching message for all the moms who don’t feel “picture perfect.”
On Monday, the tennis superstar posted an Instagram photo of herself posing in a bikini while holding Adira, her young daughter, and shared a PSA about postpartum body positivity.
“Loving yourself is essential,” Williams wrote. “I find that I have to remind myself of that self-love through all different stages in my life. Right now I love that my body is not picture perfect. I love that I smell like milk - that milk sustains [Adira]. ... I love getting to know a new version of my body.”
The champion athlete, who was pictured in a white two-piece swimsuit and sunglasses on the deck of a yacht, added: “It is a change, but it’s a change that has been well worth it. So start this week, knowing that you are loved, and that starts with you. Ok, now I’m about to go to the gym.”
Many of Williams’ 17 million Instagram followers took to the post’s comments section to gush over the 23-time Grand Slam winner.
“Embracing your whole self. What an icon,” one person wrote. “And you look fantastic. Boy do you put in the work! As a mother, wife and whole person. Queen Serena.”
“So inspirational,” another commented, adding, “having just had a baby myself I’m having to learn to be kind to myself.”
“Love that you are keeping it real,” someone else wrote.
Williams and her husband, Reddit co-founder, Alexis Ohanian, tied the knot in 2017. The pair announced the birth of Adira in August and also share another daughter, 6-year-old Olympia.