The Case Against Serena Williams Promoting GLP-1 Drugs

In the past few months, the subways have been inundated with advertisements for Ro, a direct-to-patient telehealth company that has captured attention by placing a special highlight on offering weight loss medications. One of their advertisements even made it into the Super Bowl commercials, where the growing company paid at least seven million dollars just for the rights to 30 seconds of screentime. Their newest ambassador and frontwoman is Serena Williams, who claims to be a real user, down 34 pounds with medications from Ro. She credits her health to Ro. The real question, though, is why one of the greatest athletes of our generation, a woman who has won 23 Grand Slams, needs to lose weight. More importantly, why has she completely rebranded to be the face of this multi-million dollar brand? Her turnaround from body-positive athlete to weight-loss promoter raises questions about the financial motivations behind this partnership, especially when considering that her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is one of the main investors and board members for Ro. This sponsorship has implications beyond promotion. Serena Williams’s partnership with Ro undermines the brand she has built, sends a negative message to young athletes, and is purely a money grab for both herself and her husband.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is a hormone that is naturally produced in the gut. The hormone regulates blood sugar by increasing insulin secretion, slowing down how quickly your stomach empties, and signaling your brain that you’re full. GLP-1 receptor agonists are medications that mimic this hormone’s effects, and were originally created to help lower blood sugar levels in Type 2 diabetics. Companies like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound offer different types of once-weekly GLP-1 injections that are now being popularized for their weight loss effects. Out of those options, only Wegovy and Zepbound are approved by the Federal Drug Administration to be prescribed for weight loss. Ro offers Zepbound, Wegovy, and Ozempic in both pen and vial forms, and they promote their unique access to the new Wegovy pill, a daily oral GLP-1. Ro launched their weight loss program in January 2023, and since then, their telehealth company as a whole has been estimated to be worth $7 billion. While the exact dollar amount that Ohanian has invested in Ro hasn’t been disclosed, he has been one of their main contributors since the beginning, having been on the board since the creation of the company in 2018. 

From a business perspective, utilizing your assets and networking opportunities to have Williams become a face for the company is a smart move. However, from a branding and influence perspective for Williams, this seems just like a way to increase revenue for the company and success for her husband. This partnership has underlying self-interested motivations, despite the couple already having a combined net worth of around $450 million. In addition, this wealth has seemed to make Williams forget her roots. Williams, who even has a movie, King Richard, about her family and the work it took for them to get from the ground up, should be the first to understand that Ro’s $145/month membership, plus the cost of GLP-1s which start at $149-$299/month for Wegovy pills and $299-$449/month for Zepbound vials, is not reasonable for all. 

Her motives become clearer when put into the context of her branding during her career. Her on-court presence has been marked by eccentric custom outfit collaborations with Nike that include one-legged catsuits, tutus, and bedazzled dresses. She has become a tennis fashion icon for her fearlessness in bringing bold looks to a traditional sport. Off the court, she has been consistently vocal about body positivity and creating a good environment for her daughter. “I want women to know that it’s okay,” she said, speaking on the importance of body positivity and self-acceptance, “that you can be whatever size you are and you can be beautiful inside and out.” Given the brand Williams has created based on these ideals, her partnership with Ro is a complete 180. She has exploited a damaging beauty standard that is part of the current zeitgeist, and has used it for financial success.

However, with Williams putting an emphasis on profit and success for her family, the implications of her partnership have been overlooked—specifically, the message she is sending to young athletes as a successful athlete promoting weight loss. 9 percent of the US population, or 30 million Americans, will have an eating disorder in their lifetime, with eating disorders being twice as prevalent for females (3.8 percent) than males (1.5 percent). On top of that, with the rise of social media and promotions like Williams’s, global eating disorder prevalence increased from 3.5 percent to 7.8 percent between 2000 and 2018. As a credible source, a female athlete with the most Grand Slam titles in the Open Era and over 17 million followers on Instagram alone, Williams has to consider the influence she has when promoting potentially harmful messaging to her followers, many of whom are young athletes. Williams should continue with her original body-positive branding and follow the example being set by athletes like American rugby player Ilona Maher, who is using her platform to promote body positivity. Her brand on social media, on her podcast House of Maher, and in collaborations with publications like Sports Illustrated, embodies the confidence and shows what the body of a real female athlete can look like. She negates the view that thinness equates to health in an inspirational and positive way.

This all goes back to Williams’s financial motive in her partnership with Ro. In putting her family’s interests first, she is overlooking the messaging that originally got her (off-court) success. While she deserves respect for taking advantage of opportunities and being transparent about being on a weight-loss drug, the partnership undermines the positive persona she has spent years building, and, in turn, sends harmful messaging. Williams’s partnership with Ro, while successful for her financially, has an underlying conflict of interest, and the messaging undermines her career and positive legacy.