With news of Meghan Markle’s father Thomas confirming that he won’t be attending the royal wedding on Saturday, the former Suits star’s friend Serena Williams has revealed her own experience of not having her dad walk her down the aisle at her own nuptials, HELLO! reports.
Meghan announced her father will not walk her down the aisle at St George’s Chapel on Saturday as he will not be attending her marriage to Prince Harry.
According to The Express, Thomas is said to be recovering from a heart operation which he underwent on Wednesday following a heart attack last week.
And tennis champion Serena, who married Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in November, confessed that her father and coach Richard Williams decided one hour before the vows that he wasn’t going to walk by her side.
“He was in New Orleans, he had a suit, and I know he was really excited,” she explained in her new documentary titled Being Serena via Vogue.
“But then he wrote me and said, ‘Serena, I don’t want you to be mad at me, but I just can’t walk you down the aisle. I’m not myself anymore. I’m just too nervous’.”
Despite the bad timing of the cancellation, Serena remained calm and was supportive of her father’s decision.
“Daddy, it’s okay, if you don’t want to come to the wedding at all, that’s okay too,” she added.
“I’m not going to be upset with you about it, so I don’t want you to be upset about it.”
Elaborating further, the 36-year-old added, “If he doesn’t want to be up there in front of a lot of people, I completely understand. Look, when we first came on the scene, there were a lot of people who didn’t get him. I don’t think a lot of them wanted to get him. I don’t think a lot of him could have anyway. Our family knows what we have. We just want each other to be happy.”
Serena, who is a doting mother to daughter Alexis Olympia, ended up walking down the aisle alone.
Serena and Ohanian got married in New Orleans on November 16. They met each other for the first time in 2015, which was a lifetime changing period for Serena, who admitted in a recent interview to New York Times that she was surprised to fall in love with a white guy, according to Tennis World.
Serena has always been supportive for the right defence of black’ people, especially girls. ‘I’m an athlete. He’s a business guy. I’m Black. He’s White. We are totally opposite. I think we just complement each other.”
She added, “I think we understand hard work in different ways. Literally all I tell Alexis is, ‘well, you know, there’s such a difference between White people and Black people.’ He always gets to hear about the injustices that happen; that wouldn’t happen if I were White.”
