The Tamesis
The time away from tennis also brought other benefits. Venus met her husband in 2024 at the Gucci fashion show in Milan. Preity introduced herself and the two started talking. “She speaks Italian very, very well,” Pretty said. When the texting relationship took place, “she asked for restaurant recommendations in Milan and I said I’d like look He recalled: “They met in London, where Venus was hosting a Serpentine summer party together. Venus, who had been single for six years, quickly decided that old-school romantic Preeti was the one.
“It used to be that a man would call you; he would tell you that you looked beautiful and he liked your dress. In this day and age, that doesn’t really happen,” she laments. “But Andrea did all these things. The first time he called, I thought, what’s wrong?”
The close-knit Williams family brought Preeti into their fold. “He’s her biggest cheerleader,” Serena said. “It’s hard to find someone who loves you wholeheartedly for who you are, not what you stand for.” Preity felt instantly welcome. “We were very close,” Pretty said. “We could talk about everything, fashion, movies, a lot of things. They didn’t make me feel like I was on the outside.”
Instead of going on a honeymoon, Venus and Preity hit the road together, with Venus receiving wild cards to the Australian Open, ATX Open in Austin, Indian Wells Open and Miami Open. Pretty was cheering her on from the players’ box, with Venus’ 18-year-old Havanese puppy Harry sitting on his lap. On their rare day off, newlyweds like to stay close – like being locked in a room. “We love escape rooms,” Venus admits. “We work well together, but he definitely likes to ask for cues and I’m like, let’s stick with it. I want to figure that out first.”
In May, the couple will make their Met Gala debut. Venus serves as co-chair alongside Beyoncé and Nicole Kidman. This year’s exhibition, The Art of Costume, juxtaposes fashion with forms of dress in fine art across the centuries and showcases them through a range of body types. “I love the theme. It suits me perfectly,” Venus said. “This is even more important today because people feel so much pressure to look a certain way. There’s a lot of beauty in differences though.”
Venus herself reached the height of five eleven at the age of 13. “I definitely went through an awkward period that I didn’t know I was in,” she laughs (she eventually grew to six-point-one). “I didn’t go through a period where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so tall. The guys are so tall.’ I was trying to figure out how to beat these guys that were coming to me,” she said. “I was focused on being the best player in the world.” I didn’t have time to think about whether I’d won some imaginary beauty pageant. “
Venus is famous for her love of fashion – at last year’s US Open, she took to the court wearing pieces from a host of New York designers, including Khaite, Luar and Who Decides War. She wore a black Chloé suit and sunglasses to the 2022 Met Gala by Gabriela Hearst, whom she loved working with. “Venus looked very elegant,” Hirst recalled of the Met look, which was based on the film Men in black. “As a super athlete, she knows her body very well and knows exactly what she wants.” Venus has been simplifying her wardrobe lately. The beige wool jacket she wore during our interview is from Max Mara, which she’s had for a long time, and the matching quarter-zip sweater underneath was purchased from “Bezos Atelier,” she joked. “I had to recover from my shopping addiction,” she continued. “It’s horrible. It’s too much.” The remedy was to donate most of the fashion she owned — especially handbags. (“My dog is my best accessory,” she says proudly.) The one look she keeps is the first she bought with her winnings, a Dolce & Gabbana corset she bought when she was 19.
