The Peninsula Hotel in Paris, France, has apologized to Serena Williams after the tennis star expressed disappointment at the treatment she received at the facility’s restaurant.
Williams tweeted on Monday, August 5, that the hotel denied her and her children, along with her husband, Alexis Ohanian, a table on the rooftop of the restaurant.
“Yikes @PeninsulaParis I’ve been denied access to the rooftop to eat in an empty restaurant of nicer places, but never with my kids…“Always a first. #Olympic2024,” she wrote on X (formally Twitter).
The restaurant, however, replied, saying the rooftop was booked and “fully reserved.”
“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 company said.
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“We have always been honored to welcome you and will always be [ready] to welcome you again,” it added.
Other comments following the apology suggested that Williams might perhaps be “unrecognizable” when she arrived at the restaurant.
Officials of the hotel maintained that they had “utmost admiration and respect” for all esteemed guests and could only reiterate “deepest apologies” for how Williams perceived the situation.
Serena Williams, herself, caused a stir online last week with her golden hairstyle.
The new style attracted mixed reactions from both admirers and those who thought the hairdo “was over the top.”
She posted the hairdo on her Instagram account in support of Olympic gold for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team but it brought a few trolls, as some fans attempted to denigrate the new outlook.
Other followers, however, jumped quickly to her defense, but some critics urged her to “take the wig off”.
