The tennis legend took to Instagram to share details about her Super Bowl halftime debut. Williams joined Kendrick Lamar on stage at the Super Bowl on Sunday (Feb. 9), where she performed the crip walk during the rapper’s Grammy-winning “Not Like Us.”
“When @kendricklamar and team called and said, ‘We’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, how about this? We loved your crip walk at the Olympics after you won the gold medal,’” Williams wrote in the caption of her recap from the night.
“I’m like Super Bowl? Are you serious? When would I ever get to dance at a Super Bowl? (Never) Let’s do it! I knew that winning dance from @olympics would pay off someday. End of story.”
Williams faced backlash for the controversial dance moves during the 2012 Olympics at Wimbledon after her gold medal victory over Maria Sharapova.
The six-time US Open champion also mentioned her crip walk at Wimbledon in another video, laughing as she reminisced about the moment.
“Man, I did not crip walk like that at Wimbledon,” she said, chuckling. “Oh, I would’ve been fined.”
“It was all love,” she added.
At the time, Williams was criticized for the dance, with accusations of it promoting gang violence. She responded, “It’s just a dance.”
The crip walk originated in Compton, the city where both Williams and Kendrick are from.