About six months ago, I covered an interview with Serena Williams. Some of what she said about her home life made my Spidey sense tingle – it’s beyond clear that Serena loves and adores her two daughters and loves being a mom. But she barely mentioned her husband Alexis Ohanian in the piece. While he attended at least one pre-Met Gala event with Serena this year, he didn’t attend the gala with her. Their public appearances together have been fewer and far between in the past year. Now, he did support Serena at Queen’s Club in the UK last week (she won one doubles match before her partner withdrew), but it actually looks like part of the reason why Serena has launched this tennis comeback is because she wants to get out of the house, for many reasons, some of which are about the state of her marriage.
Well, then something else happened. Alexis flew from the UK to DC, just in time to attend Donald Trump’s vile UFC event on the White House lawn. And just like Nate Bargatze, Alexis has been getting cooked on social media for cozying up to these horrible people. Alexis also watched as UFC fighter Josh Hokit called Michelle Obama a man, and then Alexis went back to his Black athlete wife, the same wife who has been called “manly” throughout her life and career. Well, Alexis finally said something, posting this statement on Twitter:
Lot of people asking me to comment: Yes, that fighter’s slur about former First Lady Michelle Obama was vile and inappropriate.
I attended the UFC event via invitation from TKO/IMG leadership (I own 5 pro sports teams + a league). I was already on my way home when those comments were made and was glad to see Dana condemn them.
For context: I resigned in protest from Reddit (the company I co-founded and built for over a decade) specifically to push it to curb communities for hate and violence on the site.
[From Alexis Ohanian’s Twitter]
People are still cooking him in the comments, basically arguing that Alexis shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I agree with that. What Josh Hokit said was vile, but THE WHOLE EVENT WAS VILE. Why are you attending ANY event with these decrepit, revolting, despicable people? Why are you attending the birthday party for an adjudicated rapist? Did you think that assembling all of these people in one space would lead to anything other than a complete catastrophe?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
