Serena Williams Held Off on Meeting Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl as Travis Kelce and the Chiefs Lost

Williams wanted to get an autograph from the singer for her daughter Olympia during the 2025 Super Bowl

Serena Williams attends the Vanity Fair Oscar Party; Taylor Swift attends the 66th GRAMMY Awards. Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage; Neilson Barnard/Getty

Serena Williams was initially determined to get Taylor Swift’s autograph for her daughter at the 2025 Super Bowl — but held off as it became clear the pop superstar’s boyfriend Travis Kelce wasn’t going to emerge victorious.

Williams, 43, revealed in a new interview with Time published on April 16 that she and husband Alexis Ohanian were hoping to take her daughter Olympia to meet Swift, 35, in her suite as the singer supported Kelce and the Chiefs.

But when the Philadelphia Eagles started putting the Chiefs’ three-peat hopes further and further out of reach as the game went on, Williams decided not to bother Swift as the “So High School” singer nervously watched the game.

Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian attend the 2024 ESPY Awards at Dolby Theatre on July 11, 2024 in Hollywood, California.Amy Sussman/WireImage

“I’m such a mom,” Williams, who welcomed her second daughter Adira with Ohanian in August 2023, told Time. “I was ready to go in here myself and be like, ‘Taylor, come get this girl.’ “

However, “It’s hard when your team is losing,” said Williams of her decision not to ask Swift for the autograph, adding, “I totally get it.”

Williams also spoke to Time about fans at the Caesar’s Superdome booing Swift when she was shown on the jumbotron. “Why would you boo her? That’s so mean. That’s just awful,” Williams said.

The tennis star’s interview also shed light on her relationship with Ohanian, who she married in 2017. “My husband and I, we’re so in a different space,” she said of their relationship. “We’re so connected, we’re so in love, we’re just, like, trying to get our daughter Taylor Swift autographs. And nothing else.”

After Swift was booed by fans at the game on Feb. 9, Williams took to X to tell the “Karma” singer not to worry about the haters. “I love you @taylorswift 13 don’t listen to those booo!!” Williams wrote in her post.

Williams faced some backlash at the Super Bowl for her cameo in Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, where the tennis star crip walked during the rapper’s performance of “Not Like Us” — his diss track for Drake.

Many viewers assumed the cameo from Williams, who briefly dated Drake around 2011, was intended to shade the “Hotline Bling” rapper, but Williams told Time on Wednesday that it wasn’t.

“Absolutely not,” she said, adding that she would “never do that.”