Billie Jean King: Sports Helps Women to Love and Trust Their Bodies [Video]

At the tail-end of 2024, I flew to Malaga to interview King during the Billie Jean King Cup finals as part of Glamour‘s ongoing mission to change the record on women’s sports, asking elite athletes and changemakers alike what needs to be done to level the playing field. The morning I’m due to meet Billie, I wrangle an interview with her wife, the South African tennis legend and CEO of Billie Jean King Enterprises, Ilana Kloss.

“Billie was always very smart,” she tells me. “She knew that when you go into the men’s arena, they pay attention […] It started when she played Bobby Riggs in 1973. He was as old as her father, but the fact that she was playing a man, all of the men got interested.”

While men’s attention (and investment) is still vital to the growth of women’s sports, there’s a bigger appetite than ever. Ilana says, “Everybody knows that women can sweat, …