Serena Williams disgusted over cotton plant inside hotel — then it quickly backfires

Tennis legend Serena Williams recently asked her social media followers their opinions on some decor she found inside a New York City hotel.

Williams was in town for an event put on by apparel companies SKIMS and Nike, which included a walk on a red carpet with Kim Kardashian. On Thursday, Williams made a temporary Instagram story post from inside an unknown hotel room where she made a discovery.

'She has a thing against cotton??'

In a point-of-view video, Williams walks up to a cotton plant sitting on a table in a hallway and asks her audience, "All right, everyone. How do we feel about cotton as decoration?"

"Personally for me, it doesn't feel great," Williams stated.

In another post immediately after, Williams is shown wearing a one-piece gray suit with one leather glove on, while holding a piece of cotton in her hand.

"Feels like nail polish remover cotton," she noted. Williams then touched it to her fingernail before visibly cringing and walking out of frame.

Although there was no opportunity for viewers to leave comments on Williams' choice of video format, on other pages that reposted the clip, she did not garner any of the support she may have been looking for.

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On the page TheShadeRoom, black viewers overwhelmingly disagreed with Williams taking issue with the plant.

"I don't feel nothing about it!! It’s cute. She has a thing against cotton??" asked Gee Gee.

"I actually think it's beautiful [art] decoration," said a woman named Constance.

"They weren't out there for her to see it as an offensive gesture. ... It's decor," a man named Jay commented.

"It's a plant! We aren't picking it, giving free labor anymore! It's a beautiful plant," remarked Kiesha.

A few viewers inferred from Williams' video that she saw the decoration as racist, with a woman named Charlandra claiming, "Seeing raw cotton can evoke racial trauma, recalling the forced labor our ancestors endured while picking raw cotton! Some of these hotels do have racial undertones! It’s a weird looking plant."

At the same time though, kiky808 said, "Victim card race baiting bs while wearing a blonde wig."

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Serena Williams and Kim Kardashian attend the NikeSKIMS Launch Event at Nike House of Innovation on September 24, 2025, in New York City. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for SKIMS

But viewers on that page were not alone. Over on TMZ Sports, the vast majority of black commenters also saw no problem with the plant.

For example, Aurora commented, "It's a plant. They didn't ask you to pick it."

Another comment read, "Black woman here, I have cotton plant decorations all over my place, they're beautiful. Wrap this up."

Cathy, who listed Milan, Italy, as her residence, asked, "Do people in America not wear cotton clothes?"

A woman named Jamie asked an interesting question when she wrote, "I'm Asian ... should I be offended when people throw rice at weddings[?]"

While Williams did not explicitly say she felt the plant was a racist dog whistle, the overwhelming interpretation of her video and remarks indicated that she was, indeed, implying it.

In the past, Williams has received public support from the media surrounding allegedly racist cartoons and alleged sexism on the tennis court. Now that she's retired and not as frequently in the public eye, her support for these plights may be drying up.

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