From Lemonade to the royal wedding: seven times Serena Williams transcended tennis
The 23-time Grand Slam champion isn't merely a tennis legend but has also become a pop culture icon after nearly 30 years on tour.
WATCH: Serena evolved from tennis star to pop culture icon and business woman long before announcing her evolution away from the game.
Alongside elder sister Venus, Serena Williams has long captured the public imagination for reasons well beyond her fierce tennis abilities. Since winning her maiden major title as a teenager at the 1999 US Open, Serena immediately set about transcending the game from her first phone call with then-U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Serena soon found herself in primetime, providing her voice in a cameo for an episode of The Simpsons:
She made a live-action cameo on Law & Order: SVU two years later, co-starring with Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni:
By the time she secured her first "Serena Slam," the American was everywhere, getting name-dropped in Kanye West's hit song "Gold Digger" featuring Jamie Foxx:
Foxx and Serena teamed up to do a duet of their own at the ESPY Awards a few months later.
Serena has rubbed elbows with all kinds of celebrities, appearing on talk shows like Ellen and Jimmy Fallon, and even chatting with IBM's own Watson computer system.
Fellow icon Beyoncé took notice, drafting her to co-star in the music video for her song "Sorry":
Serena's worlds collided once more in 2018, when she attended friend Meghan Markle's wedding to Prince Harry, a royal wedding to remember:
Serena may be stepping away from tennis, but she will never stop being a global superstar.