Venus Williams and Serena Williams might be one of the most famous sibling duos in sports, but they also grew up with three older sisters.
The Williams girls were raised in California with their father, Richard Williams, mother, Oracene Price, and half-sisters Yetunde, Lyndrea and Isha. Richard and Oracene wed in 1980, and he became stepfather to Oracene’s three children from her previous marriage to Yusef Rasheed. Later that year, the couple welcomed Venus. Serena was born in 1981.
Though Richard and Oracene divorced in 2002, the family of seven was immortalized in the 2021 Oscar-nominated film King Richard, starring Will Smith. “I love that it captured the innocence — the innocence we still hang on to, actually. It’s kind of difficult for me to say, ‘Oh, this film shows me.’ Because me is Serena. Me is my sisters. And there’s no me without her, and I could have never done what I’ve been able to achieve on the court without her because I was also watching her and learning,” Venus told Entertainment Weekly of the movie.
Serena and Venus also have six other half-siblings from their father’s side: sisters Sabrina and Reneeka and brothers Richard III, Ronner and Reluss, Chavoita and Dylan.
From their childhood in California to their sister business endeavors, here’s everything to know about Venus Williams and Serena Williams’ siblings.
Venus and Serena grew up with their parents and three older sisters
The tennis stars grew up in Compton, California, with their parents and half-sisters Yetunde, Lyndrea and Isha before the family moved to Florida.
While Richard is known for coaching Venus and Serena in tennis, Oracene’s older daughters joined their little sisters on the court by feeding and picking up balls.
“It wasn’t until I got to college that I realized that our lives weren’t what other people considered normal,” Isha told The New York Times in 2007 of their tennis-centered lives. She recalled they had a 10 p.m. bedtime until they turned 18 and not many friends. Growing up, the sisters all shared a room, too.
While speaking to SheKnows about the 2021 film King Richard, Venus spoke about their family dynamic, saying, “I think it captures the togetherness because we’re very very close. And it was so interesting how everyone who was cast — the girls Demi [Singleton] and Saniyya [Sidney] who play me and Serena, they were holding hands on set. And that is just exactly what we do. And how much they looked up to Will [Smith], which was very similar to how close we were to our dad. So, that chemistry was there. It just couldn’t have been more perfect.”
Venus and Serena have six half-siblings from their father
Before Venus and Serena’s father met their mother, he was married to his first wife Betty Johnson. Richard and Betty wed in 1965 and had five children — Sabrina, Richard III, Ronner, Reluss and Reneeka — before divorcing in 1973. He also shares son Dylan Starr Richard, who was born in 2012, with third wife Lakeisha Juanita Graham and son Chavoita LeSane from a previous relationship.
They have worked with their sisters professionally
The tennis stars have worked with their older sisters in several capacities over the years.
Lyndrea has experience in the fashion industry and works with Venus on the athlete’s fashion brand EleVen.
Isha is a lawyer and movie producer who graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and Howard University. She worked with her sisters on their family’s film, King Richard, and served as a contract and brand manager for Serena and Venus.
“She’s always saving my life,” Venus told The Root of her sister Isha in 2018. “I’m grateful for her. I have three older sisters, one younger, and I have my mom. Those were the role models in my life. We’re a tight-knit family. We were taught that your sisters are your best friends.”
Yetunde was a nurse, an owner of a hair salon and a mother of three children. She previously worked as a personal assistant to Venus and Serena and even appeared with them at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1997.
Their brother Chavoita is a film producer
Venus and Serena’s half-brother Chavoita, a son of Richard, is a film producer. In 2022, he produced a documentary about his father titled On The Line: The Richard Williams Story.
The film screened at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival and won best feature film at the Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival.
Their sister, Yetunde, was tragically killed in 2003
On Sept. 14, 2003, Venus and Serena’s older sister Yetunde was murdered in a drive-by shooting while riding in an SUV with her boyfriend, Rolland Wormley, near a suspected drug house in Compton. At the time, Yetunde was a 31-year-old mother of three.
According to Serena, the sisters were incredibly close. “Yetunde and I were so close; she changed my diapers,” the athlete told PEOPLE in 2007. “But I finally came to an acceptance of things.”
Three years after Yetunde’s death, Robert Maxfield was charged with voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison but was released on parole in 2018.
“No matter what, my sister is not coming back for good behavior,” Serena told TIME in 2018 after learning Maxfield had been released from prison early. “It’s unfair that she’ll never have an opportunity to hug me.”
She also spoke about whether she has been able to forgive Yetunde’s killer.
“The Bible talks about forgiveness,” she said. “I’m not there yet.”
They opened a resource center in Yetunde’s honor in 2016
In 2016, the family opened the Yetunde Price Resource Center in Compton to honor their late sibling. According to the nonprofit’s website, the YPRC “connects individuals to existing resources that support healing as well as co-designing community informed programming. YPRC is committed to collaborating with local organizations to offer healing-centered and trauma-informed programming to the residents of Compton.”
“We definitely wanted to honor our sister’s memory because she was a great sister; she was our oldest sister, and, obviously, she meant a lot to us,” Serena said of the center, per the Los Angeles Times. “And it meant a lot to us, to myself and to Venus and my other sisters as well, Isha and Lyndrea, that we’ve been wanting to do something for years in memory of her, especially the way it happened, a violent crime.”
Their family was the subject of the Oscar-nominated film King Richard
Isha acted as an executive producer of King Richard alongside her sisters. Reinaldo Marcus Green directed the film, which premiered in theaters on Nov. 19, 2021.
“The complicated relationship among siblings often plays out in real life in such a huge way,” Isha told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022. “I cannot tell you how many times I have been reminded by people who have not spoken to their siblings in years of how refreshing it was to see the very loving though very real and commonplace relationship of sisterhood. To be able to have that relationship with my sisters, all of them, and to have that shown onscreen is one of the biggest honors of our lives.”
Actress Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew portrayed their late sister in the movie, which made the entire family emotional.
“I think I cried the whole time. Whenever she came on film, I just — personally, I just started, like — I mean, even still,” Serena said on Red Table Talk.
Oracene added: “It was a quiet moment I think. ‘Cause we know how it was, and then how it — you know, it just — it was just something that you kind of try and put in the back of your mind and don’t want to remember.”
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