Fangirl Friday: Serena Williams

Serena Williams has always been a champ, battling for equality and serving up the truth at every turn. She’s the ultimate woman warrior and since getting pregnant it feels like she’s even more fiercely in this fight.

Last year, she penned an open letter on female empowerment and it gave us all the feelings.

Too often women are not supported enough or are discouraged from choosing their path. I hope together we can change that. For me, it was a question of resilience. What others marked as flaws or disadvantages about myself – my race, my gender – I embraced as fuel for my success. I never let anything or anyone define me or my potential. I controlled my future.

This year, she won the Australian Open (unsurprisingly) while eight weeks pregnant, and now she graces the cover of Vanity Fair in a stunning spread by Annie Leibovitz who captures Serena’s beautiful pregnant body in all its power.

Strength is sexy, power is beautiful, and nowhere is that more evident than in these photographs and in the personage of Serena Williams. Oh, and she’s also super Feminist AF. Although her and her beau Alexis Ohanian are waiting to be surprised by the sex of their child, speaking on the issue recently, she told Stellar,

There are barriers I hope to break so my baby, whether a boy or girl, won’t have to live under those stipulations. I definitely am a feminist. I like to stick up for women and women’s rights. So many things happen, and I just think: “Wow, why don’t we have a chance?” If that makes me a feminist, I am proud to be one.

She is perfection.

Photos by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair