At the end of September, Serena Williams took to social media to showcase a hotel decoration that made her uncomfortable. The tennis star was staying at a hotel in New York City when she noticed its decor felt problematic. In a video that showed a cotton plant on a table in the hotel, Serena said, “Alright, everyone. How do we feel about cotton as decoration? Personally for me, it doesn’t feel great.”
In another post, she grabbed the decoration, noticing that “it feels like nail polish remover cotton.” After Serena’s concerns went viral, some news outlets, like Page Six, reported that Serena and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, have some version of cotton decor in their own home. The “cotton decor” is actually a sculpture titled “Monument for a Promise” that was created by Radcliffe Bailey. But as Serena’s husband pointed out, this work of art and the cotton plant at the hotel are really not the same thing at all.
“Folks entitled to have their opinions, but to use owning Radcliffe Bailey’s Monument for a Promise as some kind of a ‘gotchya’ is so breathtakingly stupid — there is some very obvious symbolism of the cotton in the artwork,” he wrote in response to an X post from Page Six.
He then asked an AI chatbot to explain the difference between the sculpture and the cotton plant decor. A screenshot he shared via X shows that he wrote, “Can you explain the symbolism of cotton in Radcliffe Bailey’s Monument for a Promise in a way that a 5-year-old could understand?”
The chatbot proceeded to spell out the meaning behind the artwork in a way that would make sense to a child, explaining the history of slavery in a basic way. Even after Alexis highlighted the difference between the art and the hotel decoration, people still slammed Serena and suggested that she was overreacting.
Folks entitled to have their opinions, but to use owning Radcliffe Bailey’s Monument for a Promise as some kind of a 'gotchya' is so breathtakingly stupid—there is some very obvious symbolism of the cotton in the artwork. https://t.co/Lhuahy2O3v
— Alexis Ohanian 🗽 (@alexisohanian) September 26, 2025
Others, however, jumped to her defense and also praised Alexis for standing up for her. “The people who choose not to get that obvious symbolism are the same people who want to watch away Black history and legacy of slavery, memory, resilience, and hope for the future,” one person wrote on X. Another person responded to Alexis’s post with, “Our G.O.A.T and her man are looking mighty good!! Love you both! Ohanian is always standing up for his wife.”
On Reddit, some people called Serena’s complaint “ridiculous” or suggested that there were bigger issues to worry about. “I mean a lot of plants have bad connotations but I can’t say that I’m too bothered by it,” one person wrote, adding that “at a certain point you realise there are bigger problems to be dealing with than decor.”
Others didn’t love the decor either, but mostly because they found it “ugly.” Someone else wrote, “It wasn’t in her personal room and this is so silly I have to hope she might be trolling? I find it a strange choice because its so ugly but I don’t think it’s malicious or really problematic, just a weird choice when you could have flowers 🤷🏿♀️.”
A third Redditor defended Serena, writing, “Serena has been dogged by racism on a global scale for years now, though… I can give her some grace for making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill once in a while.”
