Tennis pro Venus Williams has revealed her struggle with a medical condition that left her with debilitating symptoms.
Speaking to NBC News Correspondent Zinhle Essamuah on Today, Williams, 45, detailed her ongoing struggle with benign tumors in the uterus known as fibroids. The condition can cause symptoms like “extreme pain,” as Williams described.
“You know, getting so much in pain that maybe you throw up,” the seven-time tennis Grand Slam champion told Essamuah. “Or you can’t get off the ground… I missed practices because of that. Just, you know, hugging the toilet.”
Williams recalled a specific instance before winning Wimbledon in 2016 with her doubles partner and sister Serena Williams. “We had a doubles final to play next, and I was just lying on the floor in the locker room, like, ‘It’s gonna pass. It’s gonna pass.’ And thank God Serena got the doctor. And I was able to get up and eat and start playing [which was] bad luck for our opponents,” Williams said.
The tennis champion initially believed her symptoms were related to Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease she’s lived with for years.
“I thought maybe it was autoimmune anemia or something like that. It was what I was dealing with inside, which was fibroids and something else I had never heard of, which is adenomyosis,” Williams said. Adenomyosis occurs when tissue invades the uterine walls. The condition is known to cause pain, irregular periods, and heavy bleeding.
For years, Williams had been dealing with debilitating pain around her period. “It just got too bad, and I couldn’t handle it,” she said. Doctors often told her what she experienced was “normal” and “part of aging,” while another told her to get a hysterectomy.
“I've never been so sad in my life,” she recalled of that time. “I wasn’t trying to have too many kids, but like you never want those choices taken away — the feeling of that is really a nightmare.”
Ultimately, Williams’s doctors didn’t connect her severe symptoms with the fibroids, choosing instead to monitor the growth of the tumors without telling the tennis champ.
“I didn’t know that they were really big,” Williams told Essamuah. “I didn’t know that they were growing and growing and growing.”
After seeing an ad online for a fibroids clinic, Williams did some research, realizing her experience wasn’t normal as so many doctors led her to believe. She then underwent a myomectomy — a procedure that removes the fibroids while keeping the uterus intact — a year ago under the care of a doctor from NYU’s Langone Health’s Center for Fibroid Care. With July being Fibroid Awareness Month, Williams felt the need to share her story.
“You can be denied the best health care no matter who you are. And that you have to be your own advocate,” Williams said. “Hopefully, someone will see this interview and say, ‘I can get help. I don't have to live this way.’”
Williams also hinted at a potential return to the tennis court, saying: “I’m not playing badly, so you never know.”
However, she told Essamuah: “I’ve been taking this time to rest and recover and live my life and be, you know, a happy person without fibroids.”
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