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Here's How Celebrities, Athletes, and Regular People Are Giving Back During the Coronavirus Pandemic


Across the globe, people are grappling with the growing COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths due to the coronavirus have soared in Italy as hospitals try to manage high demands and lack of supplies. In the U.S., panic levels are high, with health officials advising “social distancing” and taking extra precautions to protect your health. Most major live events, TV productions, and movie releases have been canceled while citizens grapple with postponing their own important gatherings to protect vulnerable, immune-compromised individuals.

Thankfully, fear hasn’t stopped people from giving back to their communities and inspiring us all in these scary times. From acts of kindness to major donations that will help those who are sick and/or out of work, here are just a few of the ways celebrities and regular people, alike, are doing good in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak:

Zion Williamson will cover the salaries of Smoothie King Center staff

The NBA announced that all games have been canceled for the rest of the season, which means stadium workers and employees could lose serious wages. However, New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson wants to do his part: He announced on Instagram that he’ll help cover the salaries of those who work at the Smoothie King Center.

“My mother has always set an example for me about being respectful for others and being grateful for what we have, and so today I am pledging to cover the salaries for all of those Smoothie King Center workers for the next 30 days,” he said.

Kevin Love donates $100,000 for the staff at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse

Cleveland Cavaliers player Kevin Love was one of the first athletes who stepped in to help stadium staff that will struggle over canceled games. He promised $100,000 to benefit workers at Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.



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Simone Biles Gets Emotional Talking About How USA Gymnastics Failed Athletes


Simone Biles made history twice in a row this week during the U.S. Gymnastics Championships: First she nailed a triple-double during a floor routine and then she pulled off a perfect double-double dismount, making her the first female athlete to land both moves in competition. She ended up winning her sixth all-around title, a massive milestone for the 22-year-old athlete.

Biles has been busy celebrating her legendary performances. On Monday she posted an image on Instagram that shows her looking absolutely overjoyed and captioned it, “That feeling when you make history…twice.”

But her victories weren’t the only powerful thing she did last week. In an interview before she competed, Biles addressed reports that USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee failed to protect athletes like herself from former physician and team trainer Larry Nassar, who is serving multiple lifetime sentences after being convicted of criminal sexual conduct.

After an 18-month investigation, a bipartisan Senate committee announced that both organizations “knowingly concealed abuse by Larry Nassar, leading to the abuse of dozens of additional amateur athletes from summer 2015 to September 2016,” according to a report from the Washington Post.

Before competing, she told reporters, “They couldn’t do one damn job. You had one job. You literally had one job, and you couldn’t protect us,” she said. “And it’s just really sad because every time I go to the doctor or training, I get worked on and I don’t want to get worked on, but my body hurts. I’m 22. At the end of the day, that’s my fifth rotation, and I have to go do therapy, but it’s just hard, and we try to work through it, but it’ll take some time. I’m strong, I’ll get through it, but it’s hard.”

Biles has been committed to shining light on abuses in the gymnastics world, and she’s supported other victims of assault. Last year she wore a leotard specifically to honor survivors. As she explained, “I stand with all of them, and I think it’s kind of special to unite.”



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Serena Williams Says Pay Discrepancy for Female Athletes Is 'Ludicrous'


Serena Williams—and the U.S. women’s soccer team—isn’t here for the pay gap. On Friday, the tennis icon called the pay gap in sports “ludicrous” while sharing her support for the team and its lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation.

“The pay discrepancy is ludicrous,” Williams, a 23-time grand slam singles champion, told reporters during a press briefing at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. “It’s a battle; it’s a fight,” she added. “I think at some point in every sport, you have to have those pioneers, and maybe it’s time for soccer.”

Twenty-eight players on the U.S. women’s soccer team announced the lawsuit on Friday, International Women’s Day, alleging what it called “institutionalized gender discrimination.”

The lawsuit goes far beyond pay, which still remains a major issue across the sports industry, and calls out how often female athletes get to train compared to their male counterparts, medical treatment, and more, The New York Times reported.

“I think to be on this team is to understand these issues,” Megan Rapinoe, one of the team’s midfielders, told The New York Times. “And I think we’ve always—dating back to forever—been a team that stood up for itself and fought hard for what it felt it deserved and tried to leave the game in a better place.”

Another female athlete who can relate to fighting hard against gender discrimination is tennis great Billie Jean King. On Friday, she too came out to support the soccer team: “Sports are a microcosm of society. What is happening with the USWNT [United States women’s national soccer team] is happening in the workplace,” she tweeted. “The time has come to give these athletes what they deserve: equality.”

Williams reiterated the importance of this fight not just for the women in sports now, but for all future generations of female athletes. I’m playing because someone else stood up,” she said, “and so what they are doing right now is hopefully for the future of women’s soccer.”



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Serena Williams Says Athletes Should Be 'Grateful' to Players Spearheading NFL Protests


When Serena Williams competed against her sister Venus Williams at the 2018 U.S. Open on Friday, she had some special fans in the stands: former San Francisco 49ers teammates Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, who are known for spearheading protests in the NFL against police brutality and racial inequality. Although she didn’t know they were at the match as she played (ultimately defeating Venus), she candidly shared her support of the football players’ protests during a post-match news conference.

“I think every athlete, every human, and definitely every African American should be completely grateful and honored how Colin and Eric are doing so much more for the greater good, so to say,” Serena said in the news conference. “They really use their platform in ways that is really unfathomable. I feel like they obviously have great respect from a lot of their peers, especially other athletes, people that really are looking for social change.”

Kaepernick and Reid have both made headlines for refusing to stand up during the national anthem at games, famously taking a knee instead as a way to highlight violence against black communities. Although many athletes have kneeled in solidarity with them, their efforts have drawn criticism from politicians such as President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked their symbolic protest. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’” Trump said at a rally in Alabama last year.

Kaepernick and Reid are no longer with the NFL: Kaepernick opted out of his contract in 2017, and Reid did not get signed in the 2017 offseason. According to USA Today, they have since filed a grievance against the NFL that alleges the league purposefully didn’t sign them because of their protests.

This isn’t the first time Williams has spoken out against police brutality: Back in 2016, she wrote a lengthy Facebook post in which she reflected on how she became nervous when she spotted a police car while her 18-year-old nephew was driving. Since then, Williams has continued drawing attention to police brutality as a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement—and used her own platform to start and continue important conversations. Recently, she’s been outspoken about her scary experience giving birth—a serious topic, given how delivery complications disproportionately affect African American women. Williams’ on-the-record support of Kaepernick and Reid after the match reaffirms her dedication to using her platform to shine the light on important social conversations—as well as shows her solidarity with other athletes who bravely risk speaking out.

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MLK’s Daughter Had the Perfect Response to Critics of the NFL National Anthem Protests



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Serena Williams Tops Forbes' Highest-Paid Female Athletes of 2018


As Serena Williams gears up for her next Grand Slam tournament—the U.S. Open in New York—she continues to prove that she is the greatest athlete of all time by topping Forbes‘ list of highest paid female athletes, despite only earning $62,000 in prize money over the past 12 months.

Obviously, Williams’ straight-from-tennis earnings would be down in a year that saw her take significant time off before and after the birth of her adorable daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. (She didn’t play competitively for 14 months.) But her bankability has long been about more than just her athletic accomplishments and she pulled in $18.1 million in endorsements and business ventures, which include her Serena clothing line.

That’s more than twice as much off-the-court as the next woman on the list, Williams’ good friend and fellow tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, who brought in $6 million in endorsements, but $7 million in prize money.

In fact, the top six athletes on the list come from the world of tennis (Venus Williams comes in at #6), which says something about how female athletes in that sport are paid, both on and off the court. However, when you take a closer look at the list of highest paid male athletes, the pay discrepancy women have become all too familiar with comes into sharp focus.

In fact, the top 100 highest paid athletes in the world, according to annual data obtained by Forbes, are men. Boxer Floyd Mayweather tops the list with $285 million. And while Williams’ recent salary may look different than it has in the past (when playing full time in 2016-17, she earned $27 million), it seems utterly ridiculous that she would be the only woman close to making the list in any given year. Perhaps the most direct comparison can be made to Roger Federer, whose earnings over the past year topped $77 million and landed him at #7 on the Forbes‘ list.

Of course, these are all enormous sums of money that most of us can only dream of—but the fundamental problem of pay inequality remains. Even for the G.O.A.T.

Related Stories:

Serena Williams Said She Missed Her Daughter’s First Footsteps, and Twitter Was Amazing About It

The Black Women’s Wage Gap Is Systemic, but That Doesn’t Mean It Can’t Change





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The U.S. Open Announces Female Athletes Will No Longer Get Penalized for Pregnancy Leave


The U.S. Open is making a major change to how it seeds female players for upcoming tennis tournaments: namely, by no longer penalizing female players who return to the sport after having children. It’s an institutional breakthrough and major win for women in tennis—and it comes after backlash surrounding Serena Williams‘ huge drop in ranking after returning to the sport from maternity leave.

After the French Open was widely criticized for their handling of Williams’ return to the tournament last month following her pregnancy—the former No. 1 was ranked No. 453 after her maternity leave—the organization has now spoken out to announce a change in post-maternity protocol, one that will no longer penalize any female player returning to the sport after pregnancy.

The Women’s Tennis Association, which ranked Williams at No. 451 following her maternity leave, also received backlash and mounting criticism for its inability to make seeding allowances specifically for pregnancies—though it does have a protection that grants them “access to eight events, including two Grand Slams, and wildcard entries into tournaments they previously won,” reports Fast Company. The organization has since said it would reconsider its position—but in the meantime, the U.S. Open has taken measures to move the needle forward on this issue by creating a special protection on seedings for women who return to the sport post-pregnancy.

The U.S. Tennis Association oversees the U.S. Open, and in an interview with The New York Times on Friday, USTA president and chairwoman Katrina Adams explained the reasoning behind the Open’s decision for seeding protection: “It’s the right thing to do for these mothers that are coming back. We’ve shown that we have been a leader over the decades, from equal prize money onward to what we are doing today.”

“We are all about social justice and equality, and this is definitely an instance of equality,” she continued. “We think it’s a good message for our current female players and future players: It’s O.K. to go out and be a woman and become a mother and then come back to your job, and I think that’s a bigger message.”

Adams went on to say that forcing a player to come back from pregnancy at a lower position than when she left would be like asking a top executive to return from pregnancy leave at an entry level position in her company.

“I’m a former player and I get it,” she continued. “I would not want to be the No. 32 player in the world who has worked hard in the last year to obtain this ranking. But we’re a Grand Slam, and we have the right and the opportunity to seed the players according to what we feel is justified.”

“Serena Williams is arguably the greatest player to ever play, with 23 Grand Slam titles,” Adams said. “She deserves the respect to be put in that position.”

Related Stories:

Serena Williams Has the Perfect Response for People Who Call Her ‘Manly’

Serena Williams on the Pressure of Motherhood: ‘I’m Not Always Going to Win’

Here’s Why Serena Williams Is Pulling Out of the French Open



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