erena Williams stripped naked and sang a line from the 1991 smash Divinyls hit “I Touch Myself” in preparation for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.
A nine-second teaser video released on Sunday shows the 23-time Grand Slam tennis champion bare naked, singing one of the memorable lines from the song: “I love myself, I want you to love me.”
Williams has teamed up with the I Touch Myself Project, which was launched in partnership with bra manufacturer Berlei in 2014 shortly after Chrissy Amphlett, the lead singer of Divinyls, died from breast cancer.
Amphlett wanted the song to act as a reminder for women to check their breasts, according to CNBC.
This is hardly the first time a Williams ad has caught the attention of the media.
The campaign follows a moving Nike spot which showed a nine-year-old Serena Williams being encouraged on the court by her father, who told her to play “like you’re at the US Open.”
The 2018 US Open proved to be a bitter-sweet experience for Williams, as the veteran American reached her second Grand Slam final of the year, one year after giving birth to her daughter, but was embroiled in a court controversy that was eventually grossly lampooned by an Australian newspaper.
The Herald Sun drew Williams as an “angry baby” with exaggerated features like wiry hair, a big nose, and oversized lips. The cartoon was criticised for its racial tropes, which the artist — and the paper — vehemently denied, before embarking on a mean-spirited crusade, attempting to discredit her character and call her “no feminist hero.”
Business Insider countered the newspaper by listing, in detail, the reasons why Williams is a “feminist hero” after all — and this video furthers the argument that she champions women’s causes.
Williams has been a brand ambassador for Berlei since 2006
