While Serena and Venus Williams may take gold for being the most iconic sports sibling duo of all time, the tennis stars actually come from a very large, blended family. Serena has 11 siblings, including Venus, from both her mother and father’s sides of the family.
The Williams sisters were raised in California with their dad, Richard Williams, their mother, Oracene Price, and three half sisters (who also have the last name Price). The five girls shared a single bedroom with four beds growing up, and Serena switched off sharing the bed with a different sister every night, per the New York Times. Serena has spoken frequently about how close she is with the four sisters she grew up
These days, the 42-year-old tennis star has been busy building her own family with her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The couple has two little girls, Olympia who is 6 years old, and Adira, who was born in August 2023.
Of course, Serena’s family has played a big role in her early success, and she has shared several memories about growing up with them.
Ready to meet the entire legendary family? Here everything to know about Serena’s 11 siblings:
Venus
Venus and Serena were pretty much inseparable growing up. In fact, Serena “worshipped” her older sister, and it took a long time for her to separate her identity from Venus’, per The New York Times.
Richard and Oracene were married in 1980 and welcomed Venus into their family in June of that same year. Serena was born shortly after, in 1981. They were the only two biological children born from Richard and Oracene’s marriage.
Venus, now 43, is a tennis legend in her own right. She became a tennis pro in 1994 and in 2000, won her first Wimbledon and US Open Titles, as well as Olympic Gold at the Sydney Olympics that year. And at that point, she proved to everyone that she was only just getting started.
Since then, Venus has wracked up tons of other wins, and is considered one the greatest tennis players of all time, right alongside her sister. She has won 818 singles matches and over $42.5 million in career earnings throughout her career, per WTA Tennis.
Off the court, Venus has stayed busy. She is the chief executive officer of her own interior design firm, V Starr Interiors, wrote a book, launched a fashion line called EleVen, and has two degrees from higher education institutions.
Yetunde
Before marrying Richard, Oracene already had three daughters from a previous marriage. Despite a nine year age gap, Yetunde, the eldest half-sister who was born in 1972, was particularly close with Serena.
Yetunde was always in the stands, cheering her sisters on, and at one point, even worked as an assistant as Venus and Serena’s tennis careers started picking up, per the Los Angeles Times.
Yetunde went on to have three children of her own and worked as a nurse. She also co-owned a hair salon with her best friend from high school, per the LA Times.
Sadly, in 2003, Yetunde was shot and 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed in the passenger seat of her car during a drive-by shooting in Compton, Calif. She was 31. Her boyfriend, Rolland Wormley, gave an interview to the LA newspaper at the time. “These guys just started opening fire,” he said at the time. “We were just innocent passersby. Believe me, if anything, I would go through that myself twice before I let that happen to my girl.”
In 2016, Serena and Venus opened the Yetunde Price Resource Center in honor of their sister, per PEOPLE. The nonprofit, located in Compton, works to “ensure that victims of direct or indirect senseless violence have complete access to existing resources and that where there is a dearth in services, new resources are created,” its LinkedIn bio reads.
Lyndrea
Lyndrea Price, 45, was also an essential part of Serena and Venus’s rise to fame, helping the sister train with their father Richard. She would gather and run tennis balls for the sisters.
These days, Lyndrea does a lot of traveling and has worked as a costumer in Hollywood on projects like King Richard, Babylon, “Abbott Elementary” and “Euphoria,” per her IMDB.
Isha
Isha has also been a huge cheerleader for her half-sisters Serena and Venus throughout their career. Throughout their childhood, she was right there alongside Serena and Venus as they trained. “It wasn’t until I got to college that I realized that our lives weren’t what other people considered normal,” Isha shared with The New York Times in 2007.
Isha is now a lawyer, a producer, and a graduate of Georgetown University’s Law Center and Howard University,, per PEOPLE. Isha actually helped produce the film King Richard and is a contract and brand manager for Serena and Venus.
She’s also quite the baker, and frequently posts her delicious delicacies on Instagram.
Serena also has seven other half-siblings.
Before marrying Oracene in the 1980s, Richard Williams was married to another woman named Betty Johnson in 1965. They had five children together: Sabrina, Richard III, Ronner, Reluss, and Reneeka Williams, per The Sun.
In 2012, Richard welcomed another child, Dylan Starr Richard, with his third wife Lakeisha per Tennis.com. At the time, Serena said she loved having a little sister for the first time, but shared it made her feel like a grandma, Tennis.com reported.
Richard has another son from a previous relationship named Chavoita LeSane. Chavoita went on to produce the 2022 doc, On the Line: The Richard Williams Story. He has also posted sweet Instagram videos hanging out with his dad.