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The singer and actress is days away from inking a deal with the network to join the "Good Morning America" spinoff, we hear. "ABC execs are close to finalizing a deal . . . She's fun, spontaneous and has great energy," an insider told us.
Palmer has frequently filled in as a guest co-host, especially while Haines was on maternity leave, which she returned from last week.
"Keke has been so much fun filling in, so they decided to make her an offer," said the insider. "The audience knows her and she's got great chemistry with both [hosts]."
The daytime show replaced "The Chew" but has struggled with ratings since it debuted last year.
It was called "GMA Day" until ABC changed the name in January.
The network is hoping Palmer, who turns 26 next month, will attract younger viewers.
It's not yet clear whether the network would change the name of the show again to include Palmer's name.
We're told the deal may be done by the end of the week.
BET Networks has set the cast for their forthcoming original comedy series Biggerfrom executive producer Will Packer. The scripted series will star Tanisha Long,Angell Conwell, Rasheda Crockett, Chase Anthony and Tristen Winger. Bigger recently wrapped production this summer in Atlanta. The 10 half-hour episodes will debut on the network's streaming service BET+ later this fall.
Set in the East Atlanta neighborhood of Little Five Points, Bigger follows a single black woman who is dealing with the threat of marriage to a boring-in-bed boyfriend and the sudden, random death of a college acquaintance. The tragedy drives her ambitious group of friends to take a deeper look at their stagnant lives, asking themselves: Is there something bigger and better in life?
"I'm excited about bringing this cast of some of the most talented new voices in television to this great new medium," said Packer.
Here are the actors' character descriptions:
Tanisha Long plays Layne Roberts, a quirky, simple beauty who has been holding herself back, both in love and in life, and has found herself at a major crossroads. Her straight-laced boyfriend Greg (played by Warren Burke) has just proposed, but she's not sure if playing it safe is her style, especially when the handsome and adventurous Reggie (played by Terrence T. Terrell) is now very interested in her. Meanwhile, her vintage store needs a serious boost. Layne is upbeat, fun, and positive, but constantly second-guessing herself has started to become a problem. She is about to start taking some risks, for better or for worse.
Angell Conwell plays Veronica Yates, who carries herself with genuine confidence and knows how to make heads turn. Her real-estate business has been doing well, leaving her in an excellent position to be the advice-giver in her group of friends. Veronica encourages Layne to have a little fun while she's still young.
Rasheda Crockett plays Tracey Davis, a fun-loving, social media influencer who wants to be Hollywood -level famous. She is always up for a good time as long as she can snap an Instagram photo in the process. She's built up quite a following online but is secretly worried that her time in the spotlight might be slipping away.
Chase Anthony plays Deon Lewis, a well-groomed and fit, full of swagger guy, who may act comically frugal but is actually a very successful businessman. At work, however, his swagger is gone. He's trying to play the game and move up in the world even as his co-workers seem to get the opportunities he deserves.
Tristen Winger plays Vince Carpenter, a cutie with an odd 90s throwback fashion sense. He is a talented, old school DJ who can't help but get frustrated with the younger generation as they encroach on his game. He's got the chops to make it as a DJ, but his style is outdated, and he's having trouble letting it go.
In addition, Warren Burke will recur as the aforementioned Greg Washington, a conservatively dressed, and the ultimate play-it-safe kind of guy. He is a successful doctor who loves Layne and treats her well, but doesn't exactly make sparks fly in the bedroom. After a surprise proposal, Greg offers Layne some time to think about it but hopes she'll say yes. Terrence T. Terrell will recur as Reggie Langford, a strong, tall, sexy and bearded guy, who might not be the most romantic man in the world, but he's charming and sultry, and has a sense of humor about the fact that he's great in bed. After a few nights with him, Layne sees Reggie as the perfect low-stakes, adventurous counter to her boring but safe relationship with Greg.
Bigger was created by Felisha Marye. Packer will serve as executive producer alongside Devon Shepard who is also the showrunner.
Washington (AFP) - Former world number ones Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams were given wildcard entries into next month's WTA Cincinnati tournament, a key tuneup event for the US Open.
Each will compete in the main draw for the August 12-18 hardcourt event.
Sharapova is one of only six women to have completed a career Grand Slam. The 32-year-old Russian owns 36 WTA titles, including five Grand Slam crowns, and is ranked 81st in the world. Her most recent Grand Slam title came at the 2014 French Open.
She suffered a nagging shoulder injury and missed more than four months before returning on grass, but retired in the third set of her opening-round match at Wimbledon.
Sharapova won the 2011 Cincinnati title and lost in the 2014 semi-finals in her most recent appearance.
Williams, 39, has won seven Grand Slam titles among her 49 WTA crowns and has finished runner up in Grand Slams another nine times. The 51st-ranked US star won singles gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and has won three Olympic doubles titles with sister Serena.
It will be Venus's seventh Cincinnati start in her 25-year WTA career, her best run came in 2012 when she lost in the semi-finals.
Williams, a five-time Wimbledon singles champion, lost to US 15-year-old qualifier Coco Gauff in the first round at Wimbledon in her most recent start.
"Maria and Venus are two of the greatest champions in tennis history," tournament director Andre Silva said. "We look forward to both joining our world class field."
Alexandra Shipp, most recently seen reprising her role as Storm in Dark Phoenix, has landed a role in Kung Fury 2, joining Michael Fassbender, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Hasselhoff, and David Sandberg, who is also the writer and director of the pic.
Argent Pictures is financing and producing the project with Creasun Entertainment USA. Production is currently underway in Bulgaria and will also film in Germany.
It's Sandberg's followup to his highly-viewed YouTube short, Kung Fury. The action-comedy is set in 1985 Miami, which is kept safe under the watchful eye of Kung Fury, the greatest damn cop of all time. His Thundercops are the ultimate police force assembled from across history to defeat the villainous Kung Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
After the tragic death of one of their members causes the group to disband, a mysterious villain emerges from the shadows to aid in the Fuhrer's quest to attain the ultimate weapon. Kung Fury must travel through space and time to save his friends, defend the prestigious Miami Kung Fu Academy, and defeat evil once and for all.
Shipp, who is replacing Eiza Gonzales in the film, will play Rey Porter, a news anchor who will do anything to get the best story.
Producers are Minglu Ma and George Acogny of Creasun Entertainment, Jill Ahrens, Ryan Ahrens, and Ben Renzo of Argent Pictures, Sandberg and Pelle Strandberg of Laser Unicorns, David Katzenberg, Seth Grahame-Smith, and Aaron Schmidt of KatzSmith Productions, Philip Westgren of B-Reel Films, and Fassbender of DMC Film.
Argent partners Drew Brees, Tony Parker, Derrick Brooks, and Michael Finley are serving as executive producers.
Endeavor Content is handling international sales. CAA and Endeavor Content are handling North American rights.
Shipp was also seen on the big screen this year in A Dog's Way Home and the latest Shaft movie. Her forthcoming slate includes the CBS Film comedy Lexi, Netflix's All The Bright Places, with Elle Fanning, and the indie feature, Silk Road, opposite Jason Clarke and Nick Robinson.
Shipp is repped by WME, LINK, and Stone, Genow, Smelkinson, Binder & Christopher.
Serena Williams' Instagram.' data-reactid="31">Cribs — the Venus Williams' edition. But rather than on MTV, this episode is on sister Serena Williams' Instagram.
Serena, 37, playfully ribbed her older sister, 39, through social media on Wednesday, while also revealing that she misses the days when they cohabited.
"So I'm at Venus' house, we lived together our whole lives, we're not living together now which kinda sucks but it's life," explains Serena as she opens Venus' fridge. "And I've seen nothing's changed for her."
In the fridge are only a few juices, some takeout, and a handful of other beverages. Jokes the tennis star, "It's how she stays so thin."
Continues Serena, "This was our refrigerator for like 20 years … we lived together our whole lives, but as adults for 20 years."
The famous siblings most recently shared a Florida mansion in Palm Beach Gardens, on land they bought back in 1998 according to Variety.
The two athletes' close bond is often documented on Instagram, with Serena posting a photo of herself and Venus cuddling earlier this year. "Nobody loves you like I do," she captioned the image, adding the hashtag "#sisters."
"Accept… how I love you!" Venus responded in the comments section, alongside four red heart emojis.
In a 1991 interview with Today, the girls' mother Oracene Price said of her then-rising star daughters, "Sometimes I feel just like it was destiny, you know, for the both of them. Because my first three girls, they went out, they didn't take to it. But the last two, they liked it a great deal."
"The Lion King" star and pop icon is making her post-twins, pre-Coachella cleanse available for her fans to purchase for $99 a year.
The "22 Days Nutrition Meal Planner," a plant-based diet with no alcohol, carbs or sugar, was what got Beyoncé from 218 pounds to flawless, in perhaps a record amount of time. But it wasn't easy.
"I'm hungry," Bey famously said of the rigid regimen in the behind-the-scenes documentary of her 2018 Coachella performance, "Homecoming."
In a video unveiled this week, Beyoncé shares what it took to get her body ready for the historic performance. In the days leading up to the event, she had just given birth via emergency c-section to her and Jay-Z's twins, Sir and Rumi, and weighed 218 pounds.
"I was a woman that felt like my body was not mine," she says. Less than 50 days out from the April 2018 performance, she reveals that she weighed 175 pounds.
"Every woman's nightmare… this is my weight, 175. Long way to go," she says after stepping on the scale.
Beyonce's longtime friend and trainer, exercise physiologist Marco Borges, helped devise the plan: 44 days of no meat, dairy, carbs, sugar or alcohol.
She doesn't reveal her final weight, but the results are pretty clear by the time she steps onto the Coachella stage in her ripped booty shorts and cropped sweatshirt — an image that made fans scream, cry or simply stand with their mouths agape.
Borges and Bey launched a website where "you can discover meals, plan your week, shop and cook all on the same platform. All of the meals that will be recommended to you fit under Marco's expert nutrition guidelines (the same guidelines Beyoncé and Jay Z follow)."
Users just have to hand over their credit card, paying either $14 for a monthly subscription or $99 for a whole year.
Recipes include non-meaty dishes such as curry avocado wraps with sweet potatoes, chunky apple oatmeal with coconut "bacon," Catalan fava bean soup and soba noodle and edamame salad. For a snack, you can have hummus.
The portions are small, and with no animal protein, so they're sure to be limited in calories.
This isn't the first time Beyoncé has spread her influence to our stomachs. Back in 2015, she and Borges launched a vegan meal-delivery service. This time around, they won't deliver the food, but instead, focus on recipes that can be adjusted depending on how much time and kitchen wherewithal fans have.
When fans go to sign up for the diet, the site will allow them to pick which option would work for them, with one being the very diet Beyoncé went on to get her ready — though, there's definitely carbs on the one offered to fans.
Because, listen, no one's really gonna get the secret sauce to Beyonce's body. She's fresher than you anyway.
Actress-singer-songwriter Janelle Monáe (Moonlight, Hidden Figures) has been tapped to succeed Julia Roberts in Season 2 of Amazon's Homecoming, TVLine has learned.
Monáe plays a tenacious woman who finds herself floating in a canoe, with no memory of how she got there — or even who she is.
As previously reported, Roberts, who never intended to star beyond the show's first season, will remain on board as an executive producer alongside showrunner Sam Esmail. The second season is expected to deviate wildly from the podcast on which it is based. It is unknown who, if anyone from Homecoming's Season 1 cast — including Stephan James, Bobby Cannavale, Shea Whigham, Alex Karpovsky and Sissy Spacek — will return for Season 2.
While promoting the Amazon series back in July, Roberts declined to say if she would be involved in the already-announced second season: "I think we're going to peel one onion at a time."
Regarding the Season 2 plan, Esmail told TVLine that the season finale's post-credits scene, in which Hong Chau's corporate climber Audrey rubbed an experimental medication on her wrists to calm herself, was "a hint of things to come."
Homecoming Season 2, production on which gets underway later this summer, is slated to debut on Amazon in 2020.
Tiffany Haddish's curated stand-up comedy special, featuring six comedians personally chosen by the Girls Trip star, will begin streaming globally on Netflix next month, the streamer announced today.
The collection of specials features comics Chaunté Wayans (50 Shades of Black), April Macie (Snoop Dogg's Bad Girls of Comedy), Tracey Ashley (The Last O.G.), Aida Rodriguez (Last Comic Standing), Flame Monroe (Def Comedy Jam) and Marlo Williams (BET's ComicView). Haddish shares a history with each of the six comedians after working together in the stand-up scene or on television. She believes the industry often excludes women, people of color, and LGBTQ performers and as such wants to put this diverse group of comedians in the spotlight.
Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready premieres August 13. It's produced by Push It Productions, the company run by Sykes and Hurwitz, along with She Ready Productions.
'The Chi' star Sonja Sohn was arrested for cocaine possession ... TMZ has learned.
Sohn, who also starred in "The Wire," was arrested Sunday at 2 AM in North Carolina for cocaine possession, possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
The paraphernalia charges are misdemeanors, but the cocaine charge is a felony.
Police tell us ... she was arrested and brought into the station at 2 AM and bailed out 6 minutes later.
She posted $1,500 bail and left the station.
She will be arraigned Tuesday.
Sonja played Detective Shakima Greggs on all 5 seasons of "The Wire." She plays Brandon's mom, Laverne, on "The Chi."
We reached out to Sonja's rep ... so far, no word back.
In another Disney+ news reveal in Hall H at Comic-Con. Marvel boss Kevin Feige revealed the logo and news for the new series WandaVision. He brought out Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch) and Paul Bettany (Vision) to talk about the new series which will be "like nothing you ever seen before" in the MCU. After discussing the series, he revealed that an adult version of a character will be showing up in the series: Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau from Captain Marvel.
The events of WandaVision will take place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Young Monica was played by Akira Akbar in Captain Marvel, which takes place in 1995.
Jac Schaeffer, who wrote Captain Marvel will serve as the showrunner of WandaVision which will be available the second year after the November launch of Disney+.
Parris is best known for her role in Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk as well as Spike Lee's Chiraq. She also appeared in Justin Simien's Dear White People feature.
WandaVision is part of the Disney+ slate that was also announced at Comic-Con. This includes Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier with Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, and Loki starring Tom Hiddleston (all who were at the Marvel Studios presentation in Hall H).
Garcelle Beauvais (Spider Man: Homecoming) is set for a recurring role opposite Dennis Quaid on Netflix's multi-camera comedy seriesMerry Happy Whatever, from former Everybody Loves Raymond executive producer Tucker Cawley, Aaron Kaplan's Kapital Entertainment and Wendi Trilling's TrillTV. In Merry Happy Whatever, written by Cawley and directed by Pam Fryman, Quaid plays Don Quinn, a strong-willed patriarch who must balance the demands of his complicated family with the stress of the Christmas season when his youngest daughter comes home for the holidays with a new boyfriend. Beauvais plays Nancy, a warm and good-humored no-nonsense nurse who treats Don (Quaid) and Matt (Brent Morin) when they arrive at urgent care. It seems Don may have a crush on Nancy though he denies it vehemently. Beauvais can recently be seen in recurring roles on Starz's Power, NBC's Chicago Med and E!'s The Arrangement. She's repped by Innovative Artists, Gilbertson Entertainment and attorney Mark A. Johnson.
Chrissie Fit(Pitch Perfect franchise) has booked a recurring role in Comedy Central's Awkwafina opposite the Crazy Rich Asians star, from Rory Scovel and Gary Sanchez Productions. Written by Awkwafina, Karey Dornetto (SMILF) and Teresa Hsiao (Family Guy) and directed by Lucia Aniello (Broad City), Awkwafina stars as Nora, a twenty-something living in Queens, striving for a larger than life existence while living with her father and grandmother. Fit will play Melanie, an old high school friend of Nora's (Awkwafina) who after a lot of early success has fallen on some hard times. The two friends reconnect after Nora runs into Melanie braiding hair on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Fit is best known for her roles in the Pitch Perfect and Teen Beach franchises. Fit also can be seen in guest roles on I'm Sorry and Charmed. Fit is repped by Haven Entertainment and Abrams Artists Agency.
Showtime has given a series commitment to an untitled musical drama executive produced by multiple Grammy winner Alicia Keys and the Oscar, Tony and Grammy winning team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman). Pasek and Paul also will contribute music to the series, produced by Fox 21 Television Studios (Homeland, The Chi). Kyle Jarrow (SpongeBob SquarePants musical) will write the series and executive produce with Oscar-nominated producer Marc Platt (Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, The Band's Visit, La La Land), Emmy winner R.J. Cutler (Nashville, American High), and Emmy winner Adam Siegel (Grease: Live!)
The as-yet untitled series traverses generations to tell an emotionally complex family story that interweaves modern-day and 1959 Detroit, centering on a mystery uncovered by a young musician who moves back to her childhood home.
"We have always been intrigued by the prospect of doing a Showtime musical series, but only if the songs could add to the depth and complexity of a great character drama. Nobody does that better than Pasek and Paul and Marc Platt…so when they came to us along with a global superstar like Alicia, a talented writer like Kyle, and excellent producers like Adam and R.J., we were all in," said Gary Levine, President of Entertainment, Showtime Networks.
Fifteen-time Grammy winner Keys has appeared on-screen in The Secret Life of Bees, The Nanny Diaries and Empire, executive produced The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete, co-produced the play Stick Fly and also directed a segment of the multipart film Five. She also was a coach on NBC's The Voice.
Working as a team since they met as college freshmen, Pasek and Paul earned an Oscar for their work on La La Land and a Tony Award for Dear Evan Hansen, along with two Golden Globe Awards for La La Land and The Greatest Showman and Grammy Awards for Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman. Their other notable credits include A Christmas Story, James and the Giant Peach and Smash.
Valor creator Jarrow was nominated for a Tony for Best Book of a Musical in 2018 for SpongeBob SquarePants, and won an Obie Award for A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant.
Platt has won two Emmy Awards (Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, Grease Live!), a Tony Award (The Band's Visit), and has been nominated for two Oscars (La La Land, Bridge of Spies). Other critically-acclaimed credits include Wicked, Mary Poppins Returns, Into the Woods, Empire Falls and Legally Blonde.
Cutler received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Non-Fiction Program for American High, winning in 2001; Emmy and BAFTA nominations for Showtime documentary Listen To Me Marlon; and he produced the Oscar-nominated documentary The War Room. His producing and directing credits also include Nashville and The September Issue. He also directed and produced The World According to Dick Cheney, and is currently directing and producing the Untitled John Belushi documentary, both for Showtime.
Siegel earned an Emmy Award for producing Grease Live! His credits also include Drive, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Rent.
Keys is repped by Keith Sarkisian, Sam Kirby, Tony Goldring at WME. Jarrow is repped by CAA, Literate, and attorney Matt Walerstein. Platt is repped by CAA and attorney Michael Auerbach. Paul & Pasek are repped by CAA, Kraft-Engel, and attorneys David Berlin and David Schacter. Cutler is repped by CAA, Lighthouse, and attorney Jeanne Newman.
NEW YORK (AP) — Serena Williams will try again for a record-equaling 24th major title as one of 13 Grand Slam women's champions who gained direct entry into the U.S. Open.
The top 98 men and 102 women based on this week's world rankings were automatically entered Wednesday into the field for the final major of the year, which will be played Aug. 26 through Sept. 8.
Williams lost to Simona Halep on Saturday in the Wimbledon final. She also lost last year in the final at Flushing Meadows to Naomi Osaka of Japan, leaving her one behind Margaret Court's total of 24 Grand Slam titles.
Along with Williams, Halep and Osaka, the rest of the Grand Slam champions in the women's field are No. 1 Ashleigh Barty, past U.S. Open champions Venus Williams, Sloane Stephens, Angelique Kerber, Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Victoria Azarenka, Caroline Wozniacki, Garbine Muguruza and Jelena Ostapenko.
Both fields will be rounded out by 16 players from the U.S. Open qualifying tournament and eight wild cards.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Venus Williams has committed to play in San Jose later this month, her second straight appearance in the event.
She will play her opening match of the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in the night session July 30 after reaching the 2018 quarterfinals. The seven-time Grand Slam champion is in the field for the 15th time, though the tournament moved from Stanford to San Jose last year.
The 39-year-old Williams will be a wild-card entry in the tournament.
Beyoncé surprised fans Tuesday night by releasing the music video for her new single "Spirit" from The Lion King soundtrack.
The video debuted on the ABC/Disney special The Lion King: Can You Feel the Love Tonight, hosted by Robin Roberts.
The four and a half-minute clip is filled with breathtaking scenes from the animal kingdom, along with shots of the singer standing side-by-side with her backup dancers, and holding her seven-year-old daughter Blue Ivy's hand.
At one point, Beyoncé poses in front of a waterfall. That portion of the video was shot last week at Havasu Falls in Arizona, TMZ reported. The website posted pictures from the shoot and said the film crew obtained permits from the Havasupai tribe, which owns the land.
Within two hours of the "Spirit" video being posted on YouTube, it had been viewed more than 468,000 times.
[Watch the video above]
Beyoncé voices Nala in Disney's live-action remake of The Lion King. The Grammy-winning performer is producing and curating the album for the film.
The uplifting track is said to be featured during a pivotal scene in the film involving Queen Bey's character, Nala.
On July 9, Disney announced the album titled The Lion King: The Gift will be released on July 19. It features "global recording artists" and is "steeped in the sounds of Africa," according to a statement on the studio's Instagram page.
The highly-anticipated film will also be released on July 19. In addition to Beyoncé, The Lion King stars Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Keegan-Michael Key, John Oliver, Eric André, Chiwetel Ejiofor, James Earl Jones and Alfre Woodard.
Jon Favreau directs. The film arrives in theaters on July 19.
Beyoncé easily set a personal Emmy best today with six nominations for her Netflix special Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé, outdoing her double-nominated 2016 visual album Lemonade, and the single nominations she received for 2013's Super Bowl halftime show (short form entertainment) and special class program with husband Jay-Z for On the Run Tour.
Homecoming received nominations in the following categories: outstanding variety special, pre-recorded (where she'll go up against Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney), outstanding writing for a variety special, outstanding production design for a variety special, outstanding costumes for a variety (non-fiction or reality programming), outstanding directing for a variety special and outstanding music direction.
Homecoming launched on Netflix April 17 to strong reviews, and chronicled the singer's 2018 performance at the Coachella festival. Beyoncé wrote, directed and starred in the film.
Next up for Beyoncé is an appearance – at least in song – in The Lion King: her "Spirit" is widely anticipated to be submitted for Oscar consideration, and she exec-produced and curated the movie-inspired album The Lion King: The Gift, which features her own contributions as well as songs from Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z, Childish Gambino and Pharrell, among others.
London (AFP) - Serena Williams delivered a stinging rebuke to fellow tennis legend Billie Jean King who said she should focus on tennis and stop behaving like a celebrity and fighting for equality.
King -- who was no stranger to fighting for equality for women players when she was starting out -- may feel justified after Williams was played off the court in the Wimbledon final on Saturday.
She was beaten 6-2, 6-2 in less than an hour by Simona Halep, who had lost on nine of the 10 previous occasions she had played the American.
King had said that running a business, looking after a child and battling for equality for women and ethnic minorities, could largely all be dealt with by her staff while she focussed on tennis for a couple of years.
The 75-year-old told the BBC earlier in the tournament that Williams should give up being a celebrity for a year: "Just stop all this insanity."
Williams, though, hit back on Saturday.
"The day I stop fighting for equality and for people that look like you and me will be the day I'm in my grave," said the 37-year-old in response to the question.
On court, Saturday's blowout was the third time in the past year that Williams has failed to take the chance to equal Australian Margaret Court's Grand Slam titles record of 24 -- her stated goal on returning from giving birth to her daughter Olympia.
Losses to Angelique Kerber in last year's Wimbledon final and then a meltdown in the US Open final against Naomi Osaka, after which she says she went to see a therapist, were painful enough.
Nevertheless, Williams refused to accept that the record may elude her.
"I don't know," she said. "I mean, I don't really think about it. I just go out there and play, see what happens.
"That's kind of how I've been in my whole career. You know, I never thought about time in general.
"I feel like I'm just really on this journey of just doing the best that I can, playing the best that I can when I can."
- 'Wake up!' -
Her leaden-footed and lethargic performance -- she only really got fired up in the first game of the second set yelling at the ground when she won a point -- provoked one spectator to cry out: "Wake up Serena!"
"Actually I did hear it," she said. "I definitely wasn't asleep. But I did hear it.
"Actually sometimes the comments help me, whether they're good or bad. It didn't bother me at all."
Williams, who had her close friend Meghan, Duchess of Sussex cheering her on from the Royal Box, said she did not know if as age advances she is getting more tense about winning another Grand Slam.
"Now, you know, in my 20s -- I'm always expected to win, but it's a different circumstance for me," she said.
"Seems like every Grand Slam final I'm in recently has been an unbelievable effort to get there.
"It would be interesting to see how it would be under different circumstances.
"The only thing I can say is today I think my opponent played unbelievable."
However, if anyone thought that such a humbling defeat might prompt thoughts of retirement Williams had a message for them.
"I feel like I'm still incredibly competitive or else I wouldn't really be out here,"
"For the most part, I feel like I'm on the right track.
"I'm just going in the right direction in terms of getting back to where I need to be."
WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — The Centre Court crowd kept roaring whenever Serena Williams would win a point in the Wimbledon final, seemingly trying to will her to make things interesting against Simona Halep.
Never happened.
Instead of earning an eighth title at Wimbledon and record-equaling 24th overall at Grand Slam tournaments, Williams fell one victory short yet again, beaten with surprising ease by Halep 6-2, 6-2 Saturday.
Williams has now lost her past three appearances in major finals — and five of her last seven. There's no shame in repeatedly making it to championship matches, of course, but it used to be rather unusual to see her come up just short like this: Williams won 21 of the first 25 Slam finals of her career.
"I'm always expected to win," Williams said.
That is true.
Still, it was the seventh-seeded Halep who grabbed ahold of this match and never let go, finishing with three unforced errors to Williams' 26. Halep created problems by repeatedly tracking down Williams' shots and forcing the 37-year-old American to hit another one and another one and another one to win a point.
"I definitely knew that she was just playing her heart out. I felt like, 'OK, what do I need to do to get to that level?'" Williams said. "I don't know if there's anything I could have done differently."
After entering the final with a tournament-high 45 aces, Williams only managed two on Saturday.
She was broken in half of her eight service games.
Halep had a lot to do with that.
"I feel like I'm still incredibly competitive or else I wouldn't really be out here, per se," Williams said. "For the most part, I feel like I'm on the right track. I'm just going in the right direction in terms of getting back to where I need to be."
She hasn't won a title of any sort since the 2017 Australian Open, when she was pregnant. That was Slam trophy No. 23, breaking a tie with Steffi Graf for the most in the professional era.
It also moved Williams within one of Margaret Court's total, although Court won 13 of her 24 major titles before professionals were admitted to Grand Slam tournaments, while all 23 of Williams' major titles have come in the Open era, which began in 1968.
Since returning to the tour last season after her daughter was born on Sept. 1, 2017, Williams has reached the finals at three of six major tournaments she entered, defeated in straight sets each time.
A year ago, she was the runner-up at Wimbledon to Angelique Kerber, and then the runner-up at the U.S. Open to Naomi Osaka in a final that descended into chaos when Williams was penalized a game for arguing with the chair umpire. Williams recently revealed that she saw a therapist after that episode and sent Osaka a written apology.
She's also dealt with a series of injuries and arrived in England having contested only 12 tour-level matches in all of 2019. Just four of the other 127 women in the Wimbledon field had fewer; 105 had at least twice as many.
After losing to 20-year-old American Sofia Kenin in the third round of the French Open, Williams stuck around in Paris for medical treatment on her left knee. By the time she began preparing in earnest for Wimbledon, about 1½ weeks before the start of play, she was pain-free.
"I feel like I'm just really on this journey of just doing the best that I can," Williams said Saturday, "playing the best that I can when I can."
According to the WTA's website, women's tennis pioneer Billie Jean King said recently that she would like to see what Williams could do on the court if she were to put "everything else aside" and "focus on what's necessary" for her tennis.
King added: "If she's happy doing it this way, then that's fine. It's whatever makes her happy — it's not about us."
The last question of Williams' post-match news conference referenced those comments and asked for a reaction.
"The day I stop fighting for equality and for people that look like you and me," Williams said, "will be the day I'm in my grave."
