Getty Image / Patricia DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP
Serena Williams and her family have been in Paris for the Summer Olympics where, as the G.O.A.T. of women’s tennis, she is a lifelong ambassador of the sport.
Worth an estimated $300 million and being one of the most recognizable athletes on planet earth, Serena Williams is unaccustomed to being turned away from anything and justifiably so, she’s the GOAT. But she and her children were turned away when trying to eat at the The Peninsula Paris hotel and it didn’t sit well with Serena Williams who put the hotel on blast on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Serena wrote: “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”
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
Currently, the cheapest rooms at The Peninsula Paris Hotel start at around $1,400/night. This is a luxury property and one that caters to the 1%. Meaning, if they were to make concessions for Serena Williams it would have possibly created a ripple effect of angry customers who got bumped.
That said, this is Paris we are talking about and they harbor downright contempt for Americans and they could have easily found room for a table for Serena Williams and her family and made it happen. Instead, they got called out on social media by Serena and the hotel has since issued an apology to her while calling her out for not telling the whole truth:
Peninsula Hotel Paris / X
Surely someone told her all of those tables were accounted for, right? Did they really need to clarify that?
That said… It’s hard to imagine a world where Serena Williams brings her family there again. Paris, like the other world capitals, has no shortage of 5-star hotels with Michelin starred restaurants.
Again, this could have been entirely avoided if whoever was working simply set up another table for Serena and her kids. Instead, they have now issued a formal apology and are getting called out by the world press. Parisians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity when it comes to manners and hospitality.