Serena Williams Says She Was ‘Absolutely Not’ Dissing Drake With Super Bowl Crip Walk

Serena Williams said that she was “absolutely not” dissing ex Drake when she joined rival Kendrick Lamar onstage during his halftime show at the Super Bowl in February.

“I would never do that,” the tennis star told Time magazine. “And that was sad, that anyone would ever think that. I respect how they could. Obviously I can see how someone would think that,” she said, since she hit the stage while Lamar performed “Not Like Us,” his latest diss track about Drake.

Williams insisted that she was “absolutely not” saying that that she sides with Lamar in his decade-long beef against Drake.”I have never had negative feelings towards him. We’ve known him for so many years,” she said of the “Hotline Bling” rapper.

Her crip walk was a callback to the 2012 controversy when she did the same celebratory dance after beating Maria Sharapova at the London Olympics. On both occasions, Williams was accused of “promoting gang affiliation” with the dance moves.

Williams also told the magazine that she did two shots of tequila before hitting the stage with Lamar. Both she and Lamar are from Compton, California and have been friends for years. She and Drake dated on and off between 2011 and 2015.

The rap feud began in 2013, when Lamar seemingly dissed Drake on Big Sean’s “Control,” though he said at the time that it was just “friendly competition.”

It escalated in 2023 when Lamar released “Like That,” refuting a line in Drake and J. Cole’s “First Person Shooter” collab that Cole, Drake and Lamar are the “big three” of modern hip-hop.

A few months later, Drake dissed Lamar in “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle,” culminating Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”

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