Serena Williams’s brief dance during Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX performance became a viral talking point because it brought together “Not Like Us,” Drake, and a celebration from Williams’s own past. But its deeper significance was not a measurable contest for attention: it was a callback to her 2012 Olympic victory dance, which had drawn criticism, and a moment she later said was not intended as a jab at Drake.
What happened at the Super Bowl?
During Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on February 9, 2025, Serena Williams appeared briefly as Lamar performed “Not Like Us,” the song aimed at Drake. TIME described Williams’s cameo as lasting less than five seconds; the Associated Press said Lamar’s full performance ran just under 13 minutes.
Williams and Lamar are both from Compton, adding a shared hometown connection to a performance already charged with meaning. But the dance also pointed back to Williams’s own story.
Why did Williams do the C-Walk?
The footwork recalled Williams’s celebration after winning Olympic gold in 2012. That dance drew criticism at the time, and TIME noted the Super Bowl appearance brought the earlier controversy back into view.
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Williams’s immediate explanation was straightforward. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Lamar and his team invited her and recalled her Olympic victory dance when asking her to join. She accepted because dancing at the Super Bowl was an unusual opportunity. She wrote: “I knew my winning dance after the @olympics would pay off one day. End of story.”
Was Serena Williams dissing Drake?
It was easy for viewers to read the cameo as a pointed gesture: Williams danced while Lamar performed a track aimed at Drake, and reports had already linked Williams and Drake. That interpretation belonged to the audience, however—not to Williams’s stated motive.
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In an interview with TIME reported by TheWrap in April 2025, Williams said she was “absolutely not” dissing Drake. She added, “I have never had negative feelings towards him.” Her account was that she accepted Lamar’s invitation because of the Olympic dance callback, not to send Drake a message.
Why call the moment bigger than Drake?
“Bigger” works here as a cultural argument, not a claim that the cameo out-reached Drake. The reporting does not provide comparable audience or reach figures for Williams and Drake. Instead, the moment’s weight came from the layers it compressed into a few seconds:
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- Personal history: Williams revisited a celebratory dance that had once attracted criticism.
- Shared context: Her Compton connection with Lamar made her appearance feel rooted in more than the song’s feud.
- Audience interpretation: “Not Like Us” led viewers to connect the dance to Drake, even though Williams rejected that reading as her intent.
The Associated Press reported on February 10, 2025, that “Not Like Us” had reached one billion Spotify streams. That is a dated figure, not a current total, and it does not measure the scale of Williams’s cameo against Drake’s audience. It helps explain the song’s prominence at the time, but the stronger case for the moment’s significance is its personal and cultural resonance.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What Williams joked about afterward
Williams also addressed the dance with humor. Tennis.com reported her quip: “Man, I did not Crip Walk like that at Wimbledon.” She added that she would have been fined.
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