Episode Venus Vs. was just the beginning.
Little did Venus Williams know, but Nine for IX director Ava DuVernay was about to play a more potent role in her life than she even expected when the film director said she wanted to make a documentary-styled episode about her in an ongoing series.
"She's opening doors, and that's courageous," Venus writes in *TIME* magazine's latest issue, featuring the TIME 100 class of 2017, which includes DuVernay, of course. "Ava's point of view is fresh, it's inspiring, it's original, it makes people's heads turn," Venus adds. "But she also embraces other people's perspectives. When we worked together, Ava was able to integrate herself into my life and see things through my eyes. It takes a very special person to do something like that."
Separately, in a just-published New York Post piece, a fabulously photographed Venus offers what statement will get a guy tuned out when they're out on a date.
"When guys get nervous and they want to impress you, they say, ‘Oh, I can beat you at tennis,'" she told the Post. "It’s wild! ‘What’s your problem? I will beat you blindfolded, left-handed, with a crutch and cane.’ That’s kind of the first thing that makes me not hear anything else they say.'"
"I’m all bossed up," the ever-quotable Venus says elsewhere in the piece, noting her ongoing, refreshingly hands-on leadership with both EleVen by Venus, her fashion brand and V-Starr Interiors, her design firm.
Touching on the topic of sister Serena's forthcoming wedding (in an interview conducted before Serena revealed her 20-months-in pregnancy), Venus said, "I’ll wear whatever she wants me to. It will be nice. I’ll be dressed like Serena Williams."
That's Queen Vee in a nutshell: fairly quick to defer to her beloved sister, and yet an independent woman to the core.
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