Tennis icon Serena Williams called out Harrison Butker during the 2024 ESPY Awards following the Kansas City Chiefs kicker's controversial commencement speech at Benedictine College. The comment came during a comedic riff between awards, when fellow tennis legend Venus Williams told the audience to "go ahead and enjoy women's sports, like you would any other sports, because they are sports." "Except you, Harrison Butker, we don't need you," Serena Williams interjected.
Butker was in the audience for the ESPYs two months after his speech, during which he said he "would venture to guess" most of the women graduating were more excited about marriage and children than their careers. "I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you," Butker said in May (h/t the Associated Press ). "Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.
"I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say that her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother." Butker also criticized Pride month and abortion in a 20-minute speech that went viral enough to catch the attention of Williams. The 23-time Grand Slam women's singles champion is herself a mother of two.
She won the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant with her first child, and later made a return to the cour.