Stephen Rodrick is out with a new Rolling Stone profile on Serena Williams, and it’s a doozy.
For some reason, Williams weighed in on the Steubenville rape case:
We watch the news for a while, and the infamous Steubenville rape case flashes on the TV – two high school football players raped a drunk 16-year-old, while other students watched and texted details of the crime. Serena just shakes her head.
“Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don’t know. I’m not blaming the girl, but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don’t take drinks from other people. She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember? It could have been much worse. She’s lucky. Obviously, I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t a virgin, but she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different.”
Also, this:
“There are people who live, breathe and dress tennis. I mean, seriously, give it a rest.” Serena exits the car and the conversation moves on to a top-five player who is now in love. “She begins every interview with ‘I’m so happy. I’m so lucky’ – it’s so boring,” says Serena in a loud voice. “She’s still not going to be invited to the cool parties. And, hey, if she wants to be with the guy with a black heart, go for it.” (An educated guess is she’s talking about Sharapova, who is now dating Grigor Dimitrov, one of Serena’s rumored exes.)
The full interview hits the newsstands on Friday.
I don’t think Serena expressed her feelings very eloquently, but I still kinda agree with her…
Full article has been posted.
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/serena-williams-the-great-one-20130618
Serena was on her way to PR “redemption” or whatever you may want to call it but all her efforts were for nothing.
I’m still confused why what she said was such a controversy. She never said rape is ever justifiable or did she ever condone it. Its the readers who put assumptions on what she didn’t say. She even said shes not blaming the girl…. But of course out sick minds would think thats her saying she is blaming the girl. I believe all she meant with her statement was that women should always be watching out for dangerous situations like this. We live in a world where people don’t always have nice intentions. Of course the blame would go to the boys who did it, but we need to check reality and understand there will always be people who do wrong things. All Serena said was that parents should always teach their kids to be on the look out.
Dimitrov is Serena’s ex? No way
Earlier in 2012 before S Williams got with Patrick M., there were rumors of her dating Dimitrov. At one time, S Williams sat in the stands to watch Dimitrov play a match in Miami
The whole article is a dreadful portrayal of Williams. Kind of what I imagined she might be like. And that is why I can’t be a fan, as much as I admire her tennis.
Serena has issued a statement apologizing for how the comments came out or were quoted.
http://tennis.si.com/2013/06/19/serena-williams-steubenville-rape-case/?sct=tn_t2_a4
There is a grain of sense in what she was trying to say — people should avoid situations in which they or their children are incapable of giving informed consent to sexual activity. Unfortunately, the original statement, as quoted, seemed to absolve the boys/young men of responsibility, which is probably not what she meant to say, but that’s how it came across.
Gosh, tried writing this comment a few times and deleted each one. I guess what i can say is I can understand what Serena said and take it more of a reflection of the society we live in that has a long history of questioning a victims actions and operates under the belief that if people behave a certain way – do not walk down a dark deserted path at night as a lone female, do not talk to strangers, don’t hitchhike – then they would not expose themselves to danger. Unfortunately, that is not true but reality is not comfortable for most (myself included).
For the most part the world is a safe place and people will offer help to the vulnerable rather than take advantage. It’s shocking when the opposite occurs and it naturally raises questions about how that situation arose.
IMO she was talking about Azarenka and not Sharapova.