I’m world’s luckiest nerd, says web boffin marrying Serena
IT was an old-fashioned romance – with a 21st century twist.
The ‘luckiest nerd of them all’ wowed his famous girlfriend by taking her back to the spot where they first met in Rome, going down on one knee and asking for her hand in marriage... before announcing the engagement in a series of social media posts.
Tennis star Serena Williams, 35, revealed her engagement to tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian by posting a poem on social news website Reddit, which Ohanian co-founded 11 years ago.
She wrote: ‘I came home. A little late. Someone had a bag packed for me. And a carriage waited. Destination: Rome. To escort me to my very own “charming”. Back to where our stars first collided. And now it was full circle. At the same table we first met by chance.
‘This time he made it not by chance. But by choice. Down on knee. He said 4 words.’
She ended the poem with the line ‘And r/ISaidYes’. The ‘r/’ device works in a similar way to a hashtag on Twitter, and meant the poem showed up on Reddit’s page for users to share their engagement stories.
The post featured a drawing of Snoo, the Reddit mascot, dressed as the bearded Ohanian and kneeling with a diamond in his hand. A female Snoo, styled after Miss Williams and wearing a tennis skirt, Nike top and headband, floated above him with a smile on her face. Over the picture was the heading ‘Future Mrs Kn0thing’ in reference to 33-year-old Ohanian’s online alias ‘Kn0thing’.
Not to be outdone, Ohanian shared the Reddit announcement on Facebook, writing simply, ‘She said yes.’ He also commented on Miss Williams’ Reddit post, adding, ‘And you made me the happiest man on the planet.’ Ohanian, whose work on Reddit has made him one of Silicon Valley’s most influential tech entrepreneurs, later retweeted an edit to his Wikipedia entry, which read: ‘Ohanian is engaged to the tennis great Serena Williams. In other words, Ohanian is now the luckiest nerd of us all.’
The couple have been together since early 2015, but until now have kept their relationship largely private.
Previously the biggest clue to their being a couple was a photo shared on Instagram at Halloween, which showed Ohanian wearing a bear costume while Miss Williams sported a pair of pyjamas with the words ‘Bear Cheeks’ on the bottom.
Unfortunately the pair’s romantic Italian trip couldn’t last too long, with Miss William – who is worth an estimated £122million – yesterday back on the court in Auckland practising for her 2017 season.
Ohanian, who is reported to be worth £3.65million, accompanied the 22-times grand slam singles champion to New Zealand ahead of the ASB Classic, which starts on Thursday.
Miss William’s older sister Venus is also competing in Auckland, an event she won in 2015, and said she was delighted to hear about her sibling’s engagement.
World no. 2 Miss Williams – who won her seventh Wimbledon singles title this year – is top seed for the tournament, a warm-up event for the Australian Open grand slam later in January. She needs just one more grand slam title to move past Steffi Graf and claim the record for a women’s player in the post-1969 Open Era.
‘He said four words. And I said yes’