Featured Image Credit: Prince Williams/Wireimage
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Celebrity, Drake, Serena Williams, Music
Olivia Burke
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Celebrity, Drake, Serena Williams, Music
Drake probably isn't having the best week, considering the fact his rap nemesis and his ex-girlfriend have just made a mockery of him in front of the entire world.
Just six months after confirming that the rumours about him and Serena Williams were true, the Canadian crooner had to watch her crip walk alongside Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl.
Now, that's got to sting.
Lamar didn't hold back during his halftime show and took several shots at Drake, making it pretty clear that their beef is still very much alive and kicking.
The rapper, 37, obviously slipped 'Not Like Us' in his set list and made a subtle dig at his musical adversary with his stage design - but roping in Williams really took the biscuit.
Advert
In wake of her surprise cameo at the Super Bowl, fans have been digging into the history between the tennis champ and Drake.
The pair were romantically linked from 2010 to 2015, and the rapper shared something of a cryptic tweet about their relationship in 2011.
He wrote on X: "@SerenaWilliams I cannot wait to put it on you and make you sweat……. during our match this weekend," so take from that what you will.
But if the 'One Dance' singer's lyrics are anything to go by, it seems like Williams, 43, has been living rent free in his head since circa 2013.
Advert
It seems that Drake, 38, has snuck in several references to his former flame in his tracks over the years - and he's even name checked her on occasion, too.
So, let's take a look at the songs in which he supposedly alluded to his romance with Williams.
In his 2013 track 'Worst Behaviour', Drake made his first mention of Williams and her prowess on the tennis court.
In the song from his third studio album Nothing Was the Same, he raps: "I'm with my whole set, tennis matches at the crib. I swear I could beat Serena when she playin' with her left."
Advert
Clearly the pair had been putting each other through their paces for a significant chunk of time by this point.
Williams got hitched to her husband Alexis Ohanian in November 2017, just months after Drake dropped his More Life album in March that year.
It featured the song 'Nothings into Somethings', which saw him explain that one of his ex's had moved on - and giving the timing, it doesn't take a genius to guess who he's talking about.
He raps: "Did I just read that you just got engaged on me? I heard from your friend, you couldn't even tell me...or better yet wait on me."
Advert
According to Drake, Williams helped him pen his infamous 2015 diss track directed at Meek Mill titled 'Back to Back'.
He revealed that, while wrangling with his fellow rapper, he had been chatting to the tennis star about 'her and [Maria] Sharapova going back and forth over the years'.
During an appearance on the Rap Radar podcast in 2019, Drizzy said he was 'with Serena at the time' when he was writing the track and that she motivated him to finish it.
Advert
He explained: "You know, she's a top competitor, so she was like: 'You gotta finish it. I'm talking about done. Over. And it's gotta be something that everyone [Meek] is with and him have to hear. You can't do some s*** for the moment and then it goes away'. She kinda put this battery in my back."
Drake took off the kid gloves in 2022 when he dropped the song 'Middle Of The Ocean' on the album Her Loss, as he again referenced Williams by name while taking the mick out of Ohanian.
In the song, he says: "Sidebar, Serena, your husband a groupie. He claim we don't got a problem but, no boo, it is like you coming for sushi."
Reddit co-founder Ohanian, 41, seemed to respond to the rapper in a tweet which read: "The reason I stay winning is because I’m relentless about being the absolute best at whatever I do — including being the best groupie for my wife [and] daughter."
In August last year, Drake launched his '100 Gigs For Your Headtop' website, which featured unreleased songs and archival footage.
In one of these clips, the rapper is seen chatting to his mother Sandra Graham in the studio while playing his 2016 hit featuring Rihanna, titled 'Too Good'.
In it, Drake raps: "You got somebody other than me...don't play the victim when you're with me, free time is costing me more than it seems."
In the '100 Gigs' footage, he tells his mother: "I get heavy on a couple joints, but this is more about me and Serena," to which she responded: "I gather!"
I bet the Williams-Ohanian household is a Drake free zone then.