Serena Williams is calling out a five-star Paris hotel after she and her family were denied a table at the property’s rooftop bar. On Monday, Williams wrote on X that she, her husband Alexis Ohanian, and their daughters Olympia and Adira, were turned away from the rooftop of the Peninsula hotel even though it didn’t look full.
“Yikes,” she wrote on X, tagging the property. “I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places but never with my kids. Always a first.”
In response, the hotel tweeted at Williams, asking her to accept its “deepest apologies,” saying that the rooftop bar was “fully booked” when she stopped by. “The only unoccupied tables you saw belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was fully reserved,” the hotel wrote. In another tweet, it added: “We have always been honored to welcome you and will always be to welcome you again.”
Williams’s post was flooded with responses from people split about what exactly happened. While some accused the former tennis player of wanting special treatment during the busy Olympics season, others felt that she was denied entry because she’s Black — a reasonable feeling given the experiences people of color in France regularly deal with. Earlier this year, Kelly Rowland suggested that a terse exchange she had with an usher at the Cannes Film Festival had been racially motivated, the country’s refusal to allow its athletes to wear hijabs in competition has been condemned as racist and sexist by international organizations, and France has seen an increase in racism and intolerance in recent years.
In a statement to Today, the hotel doubled down on its tweet, saying, “We can only reiterate our deepest apologies for her perception of tonight’s situation.” We’ll have to see if Williams accepts the apology.