Ever since the movie ‘King Richard‘ has been making news for revealing the childhood story of Venus and Serena Williams, their half-sister, Sabrina Williams, one of the 5 kids of Richard Williams from his first marriage, has been bringing out how different the movie has been with the reality which Venus and Serena have not faced but Sabrina and her other 4 full-siblings knew.
Born as the daughter of Betty Johnson and Richard, Sabrina was the eldest sister of Richard III, Ronner, Reluss and Reneeka and remembers some of the incidents vividly having seen her mother struggle with meeting the ends meet for her family of 6 after Richard walked out on them on the pretext of going out to buy a bicycle for Sabrina and never to return home ever.
In a recent interview with The Sun, Sabrina said, “We went from having food to no food,” which as per Sabrina led to an eating disorder. “When I got towards 14, I really started to struggle with my mental health. I found myself hoarding food. We had gone from having food to not having food, it was really scarce,” further saying that the family survived mostly on beans and rice.
“I remember many times where my mom always made sure there was food on the table, but I could tell the times maybe it wasn’t going to be so much. I would hoard food. Like if my mom would buy Ding Dong chocolate cakes, I was sneaking into the cabinet at night after everybody was asleep, and take three or four out of the packet,” added Sabrina.
I slept on a park bench says Sabrina Williams
Speaking further about how difficult it got for the family and especially Sabrina who had by then started suffering from her eating disorder. “Or if there was some leftover chicken or beans and rice, I would take a small bowl and put it under my bed. I was scared of being hungry, and food became my thing to stuff my emotions with. I was really not wanting to recognise my feelings,” said Sabrina.
Sabrina also recalled one of her incidents of meeting Richard when she met Richard along with Serena and Venus at a theme park in California, the only time she met her tennis superstars half-sisters. Richard on bumping into Sabrina promised to stay in touch and provided his contact number which was out of order and he never made any efforts from his side as well.
“When I saw my dad at Knott’s Berry Farm, it hit me then. But again, I just stuffed those feelings down and I remember that day when I did see him, I just went and ate three funnel cakes, got a sugar high and then went to sleep, literally on a park bench,” said Sabrina.
