Serena Williams praised for showing postpartum struggles after failing to fit back into denim skirt

She’s not skirting around the hard conversations.

Fans applauded Serena Williams for opening up about her postpartum body struggles while trying on a denim skirt that used to fit her before giving birth to her two children.

“Ok everyone, I have been working my 🍑 off!” the tennis champion, 42, captioned an Instagram video Wednesday. “Let’s see what happens with my jean skirt. Can I fit it yet? Check it out!”

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In the video, Williams is seen wearing shapewear as she attempts to squeeze into the maxi skirt.

“I’ve been gyming a lot, but I don’t know if the needle is moving,” she said while stepping into the rigid garment. “Let’s see if Compton has a problem still.”

As the athlete struggled to get the skirt over her hips, she admitted, “I can’t say I’m happy about this.”

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Williams shared that she had tried on the skirt nearly six weeks prior and was hoping for more progress.

“It’s getting there,” she said with a laugh, adding that “before” she could only pull it to under her butt and she was now able to pull it up a little higher this time.

“So, almost there,” she said. “See? We’re going to have to do a side-by-side ’cause it’s like an inch higher.”

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Williams said she was going to hang the skirt back up in her closet before joking, “I just want to cry.”

“But I’m not going to stop eating all the snacks,” she assured her followers with a silly smile.

Hordes of fans flooded the star’s comments section to commend her for bravely sharing her postpartum weight loss and body image struggles with her 17.2 million Instagram followers.

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“Thank you for doing this and showing that it’s a process after giving birth for world class athletes,” Octavia Spencer commented on the post, adding, “You’re even more stunning and real!”

“Girl the boota is looking lifted!!!” angel investor Hannah Bronfman cheered.

“Thanks for showing us that you have the same struggles we do. Work out, try it on, work out change it up, try it on…. All of our same goals too…. Thank you,” a fan wrote.

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“I feel every little piece of this deep in my soul,” a netizen commented.

“So real!!! you look great!!” a supporter wrote, with another agreeing, “I’m crying. I love that she would show us this.”

“You got this baby girl! I’m on the same journey with stuff in my closet! Almost there!” someone else wrote.

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“I feel every pull & tug but hey if Serena Williams is struggling to pull her Jean skirt up…I’m in great company,” another person quipped.

Williams gave birth to her and her husband Alexis Ohanian’s second child — a girl named Adira — in August 2023.

They revealed baby No. 2 was en route when the sports legend debuted her baby bump at the 2023 Met Gala.

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The couple are also parents of daughter Olympia, whom they welcomed in September 2017 via an emergency C-section.

Williams nearly died giving birth to her first child due to “near-fatal complications.”

She opened up about the harrowing experience in an April 2022 Elle essay, sharing, “They needed to insert a filter into my veins to break up the clot before it reached my heart.”

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She continued, “Being heard and appropriately treated was the difference between life or death for me.”

Ohanian, 41, described his wife’s health scare as a “traumatizing” experience in a 2020 interview with the Guardian.

Williams and the Reddit co-founder tied the knot in November 2017.