Venus Williams has long been known for her champion spirit, but she’s opening up about a private struggle many Black women know all too well: battling fibroids.
During an interview with NBC News Daily Anchor and NBC News Correspondent Zinhle Essamuah (who also battled fibroids) on NBC’s TODAY show, she recounted her journey to being diagnosed with fibroids.
“My symptoms were extreme pain. You know, getting so much in pain that maybe you throw up. Or you can’t get off the ground … I missed practices because of that. Just, you know, hugging the toilet,” Williams, 45, told Essamuah, 30. Those symptoms began when Venus was an adolescent and would experience heavy bleeding during periods.
Initially, Williams thought the symptoms may be triggered by Sjögren’s syndrome, a chronic autoimmune disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s moisture-producing glands.
Venus publicly shared she had the condition in 2011.
“I live with an autoimmune disease. So I thought maybe it was autoimmune anemia or something like that. But really it was what I was dealing with inside, which was fibroids.”
In addition to fibroids, Williams learned she had adenomyosis, a condition in which the tissue that usually lines the inside of the uterus grows into the muscular wall of the uterus.
Fibroids, which are noncancerous growths in the uterus, affect up to 80% of Black women by age 50. They can cause heavy menstrual bleeding, severe cramps, pelvic pain, and even fertility challenges.
The tennis pro shared her symptoms with doctors who dismissed her concerns—a common experience for Black women. One told her it was a regular part of aging when she was around 37, and another doctor joked about Williams’ symptoms, saying they were “natural birth control.”
“I had no idea what that meant. No one explained it to me,” she said. “Looking back, that’s not funny at all to take away someone’s opportunity to have a child or create a family if they want to. It’s not a joke.”
Williams was also advised to get a hysterectomy, which would impact her ability to have kids, as it’s a surgical procedure to remove the uterus.
“I’ve never been so sad in my life,” she recalled. “I had never been running to have kids, but I always wanted to have a choice, and to have that taken away is just frightening.”
The seven-time Grand Slam winner found a solution—she got a myomectomy a year ago after meeting Dr. Tara Shirazian from NYU’s Langone Health’s Center for Fibroid Care. The procedure enabled Williams to keep her uterus intact while also removing the fibroids.
Fibroids not only impacted the athlete’s health, but they also affected her career, she said.
“I never had enough energy most times to play a real match the way I wanted to, and, of course, it affected my results.”
That said, the tennis icon, who is typically reserved about her personal life, wants to shed more light on fibroids and is helping achieve that goal by courageously sharing her experience. Considering July is Fibroid Awareness Month, it is a timely period to share.
“Hopefully someone will see this interview and say, ‘I can get help. I don’t have to live this way,’” Williams said. “I’m very passionate about this at this point in time because I know that other people can live better than what I lived.”