Serena and Venus Williams’ half-sister feels the film about their father’s life and involvement in helping the tennis stars to superstardom is ridiculous.
The film King Richard depicts the narrative of Richard Williams, who is played by Will Smith, a two-time Academy Award candidate. However, Sabrina Williams claims that the film omits the first 30 years of Richard’s life, when she and her four biological siblings were born and then abandoned.
Richard, who is now 79 and reputedly “incapable” after two strokes, married Serena and Venus’s mother, Oracene. He made it his duty to guarantee that their two girls become professional tennis players, which included penning a 78-page manifesto describing his plan for success.
“He choose [sic] tennis for them because he thought it might make him a billionaire,” Sabrina claimed, adding that she had only seen her father a few times since he abandoned her and her four siblings to be “raised in poverty.”
“I had two childhoods,” she says. The first phase went well since we had money, but the second was really difficult. “It was like an immediate transformation,” she said, adding that Richard failed to assist her family during her mother’s cancer battle in 1998. “I don’t think my mother would have survived if it hadn’t been for the churches we attended.”
Despite her ordeal, Sabrina says she has no ill will or animosity against her father, only empathy and “sympathy.” She sought counseling to help her work through her childhood traumas, and she now works happily in hospice care in Las Vegas.
Nonetheless, she claims she would have like to have Richard’s “whole tale” represented in the film and believes its leading man is turning a blind eye.
“Isn’t it a comedy?” How can you produce a movie if you only tell half of the story? It begins with dad and his new wife Oracene, as well as their children. She sneered, “It’s like nothing happened before.” “I simply need to watch it right now because I had no idea how hilarious it would be.” Because I know the entire tale, one of the things I’ll have to do is not laugh out loud in the auditorium.”
She thinks the film’s title is “totally over the top.” He believes he is the King of the World, yet no one who has ever met him believes he is King Richard. It’s an outlandish moniker, yet it fits him well.
He isn’t the world’s ruler. If you look at him mentally, it’s something he’s never accomplished outside of his brain; he’s only lived through two of his daughters, abandoning his other children.”
While Sabrina believes that Richard’s first marriage and family should not have taken up the entire film, she believes that adding “at least a nod” to it would have added authenticity.
Will Smith, she feels, should be “ashamed of himself” as a Black man and parent with a multiracial family.
“They believe Will Smith is likely to win an Oscar for this; I admired him greatly, but as a black American, he should have wanted to convey the whole narrative,” she lamented. “Will Smith isn’t a moron.”
Sabrina said that she only met her famous half-sisters once, by happenstance, while the girls were adolescents at Knott’s Berry Farm, a California amusement park. She added she’d want to meet her niece, Serena’s 4-year-old daughter Olympia, even if she wasn’t sure she’d see them again.
Sabrina doesn’t think she’ll “see him alive” when it comes to Richard. Because I know I won’t be able to attend his burial, I’ve even buried my father in my mind. That’s not going to happen; they’re not going to allow me, and they’re not even going to inform me. I’ll get the information from the news or a buddy.”