Serena Williams, one of the most successful and wealthiest athletes in the world, turned to social media Thursday to voice her discomfort over a decorative choice in a hotel hallway.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion, whose net worth has been estimated at $350 million, shared a brief video on her Instagram Stories that quickly sparked conversation. In the clip, Williams filmed what appeared to be a cotton plant arranged in a vase inside a hotel—believed to be located in New York City.

“Alright, everyone. How do we feel about cotton as decoration?” Williams asked her 18.2 million Instagram followers, inviting them to weigh in on the display.

Her post, though casual in tone, underscored how even a seemingly minor detail can ignite larger discussions when shared by a public figure of her stature.

Williams didn’t leave her reaction at a simple question. She elaborated further in the video, admitting her personal discomfort with the display.

“Personally, for me, it doesn’t feel great,” the tennis icon said, making it clear that the choice of decoration struck a negative chord.

In a follow-up Instagram Story, Williams went a step further by holding a piece of the cotton she had removed from the vase arrangement, reinforcing the point to her audience and emphasizing that her reaction was more than a passing observation.

Williams added another remark while examining the plant more closely, saying the fibers “feel like nail polish remover cotton.”

Her reaction, however, didn’t land as she might have expected. Instagram’s Stories feature does not allow direct replies, but critics quickly found other platforms to voice their responses. Many questioned the intent behind Williams’ discomfort, with some suggesting she was attempting to draw a connection between the decorative cotton and the painful legacy of slavery in the United States.

On Instagram and beyond, reactions were swift and often unsparing. One critic posted, “When cotton triggers you but you’re A-OK with Nike’s sweatshop practices,” a reference to Williams’ longtime endorsement deal with the athletic apparel giant.

Another comment read, “This is how screwed up our world is when you’re worrying about a cotton plant in the lobby of a hotel.”

Others took aim at what they saw as hypocrisy or overreaction, with one user pointedly asking: “Do you not wear cotton, have cotton socks, cotton balls in your home? Give me a break. I think they’re beautiful. It’s Fall.”

The criticism spilled over onto X, formerly known as Twitter, where users echoed similar sentiments, questioning both the tone and substance of Williams’ posts.

Critics were quick to highlight the disconnect between Williams’ lifestyle and her reaction to the decorative display. As many pointed out, she wears cotton clothing, sleeps on cotton sheets, dries off with cotton towels, and even uses cotton products in her beauty routine—yet expressed unease at seeing the material arranged in a vase in a hotel lobby.

The more pointed criticism centered not just on the inconsistency but on what some perceived as a deeper misstep. By framing her discomfort in a way that suggested a symbolic link to slavery, Williams was accused of trivializing the experiences of actual victims of oppression, both past and present.

In reality, millions of people remain enslaved around the world today, campaigners note, yet Williams—while seated atop a fortune estimated at $350 million—chose to spotlight a decorative plant. Detractors argue that her posts did little to advance conversations about human rights or racial justice and instead risked widening divisions in an already polarized social climate.

Observers also stressed that the incident did not unfold in a vacuum. This was not 2017, when retailers like Hobby Lobby faced public controversy over fall décor featuring cotton stalks. Nor is Williams a struggling underdog fighting to be heard. She is a global celebrity, born in 1981 and raised in California, whose career has made her one of the most influential athletes in history.

For critics, her complaints rang hollow. Cotton, after all, has been cultivated and used worldwide for millennia to produce everyday goods. Williams herself was never enslaved, her parents were not enslaved, and her distance from that history is arguably greater than that of many others living today who still grapple with its direct legacy.