Tennis superstar Serena Williams recently got into a spat with a fancy hotel in Paris when she and her family were denied access to a rooftop restaurant.  Williams voiced her frustration on social media, calling out “The Peninsula Paris” after she was unable to dine at the establishment while visiting France to enjoy the Olympics with her family.

Williams claimed on X that she was “denied access” to the establishment’s rooftop, which was allegedly “empty” at the time.  “Yikes @peninsulaparis I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places but never with my kids. Always a first. #Olympic2024,” Williams wrote.  However, Serena’s side of the story does not appear entirely truthful.

X’s community notes quickly added context to her comment, stating, “Serena Williams was not denied a table. The restaurant was fully booked and she was advised that was the case.” Following the legendary Tennis player’s post to her millions of followers on the platform, the restaurant directly responded to Williams, offering a sincere apology for the full booking.

“Dear Mrs. Williams,  Please accept our deepest apologies for the disappointment you encountered tonight.  Unfortunately, our rooftop bar was indeed fully booked and the only unoccupied tables you saw belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was fully reserved,” The Peninsula Paris X account wrote.  “We have always been honored to welcome you and will always be to welcome you again. The Peninsula Paris.”

This sparked a variety of responses from users on X.  “Using your fame to trash a restaurant because they did not bend to your entitled demands is being the worst type of person. I thought you were better than this???” one person wrote, blasting Serena for her seemingly untruthful actions toward the Parisian restaurant.

Another person called out Williams, writing, “SERENA.. Will you tweet out an apology as fast as you tweeted out your obvious mistake You tried to race bait when there is a policy in place. What if someone got fired due to your irresponsible behaviour Shameful & disgusting. Do better. For your kids.”

Another X user questioned, “What’s your goal in posting this? Outrage from strangers? Hard working servers lose their jobs? All because you couldn’t sit at a table at a fully reserved restaurant. To think they should experience negatives bc you didn’t get what you want and have a following.”

However, one person appeared to defend Williams in her celebrity outrage.  The user seemingly suggested that the restaurant should be more accommodating to Williams because of her A-list status, as the bad press she could ostensibly inflict would not be worth turning her away.  This sharply contrasted the views of other users who maintained that Williams was no different than the rest of the patrons.

They wrote, “Let me give you guys a social media tip, find a solution. 1. You don’t turn away big name celebrities you make accommodations because the good press can push your brand forward. 2. When an A list celebrity wants to partake try and make it work or stuff like this happens and the bad press will not be worth it. 3. Check your yelp, or other food rating platforms, by the end of the day you’ll be down several points and castigated. 4. The appropriate customer service answer was “We will find a way to accommodate can you return in x time so we can make accommodations, we are currently absolutely full”

Watch Serena Williams attack Christian football star Harrison Butker:

Featured image credit:  Edwin Martinez from The Bronx, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Serena_Williams_US_Open_2013.jpg