Serena Williams criticized a luxury hotel in Paris on Monday evening for being “denied access” to the hotel’s rooftop restaurant along with her children. The retired tennis champion, who served as a torch bearer at the opening ceremony of this summer’s Olympics, shared an anecdote about her experience at the Peninsula Paris on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places … but never with my kids,” Williams wrote. “Always a first.” She added on a hashtag for the Olympics.
Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places 🫠 but never with my kids. Always a first. 🙄#Olympic2024 pic.twitter.com/lEGJR5WoEn
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) August 5, 2024
A staffer at the Peninsula’s rooftop restaurant, Maxime Mannevy, told Variety that Williams showed up to the premises with another woman and a stroller and looked “unrecognizable.”
“When she came there were only two tables available and they had been reserved by clients of the hotel,” said Mannevy, who shares that she was not working when Williams visited the restaurant. “My colleague didn’t recognize her and feels terrible, but he told her what he would have told any other client, which is to wait downstairs in the bar for a table to become available. That was absolutely nothing personal.”