Billie Jean King ties 39 majors to equal-pay fight

Billie Jean King, 82, used a Guardian interview published Nov. 9, 2026, to revisit a 39-Grand-Slam career and the equal-prize-money fight that reshaped women’s tennis.

The scale of her record gives the interview current weight: her 20 Wimbledon titles across events are matched only by Martina Navratilova, while the original 9 began with symbolic $1 contracts in 1970.

The interview came alongside Give Me the Ball!, a new documentary about King and the original 9 players who created a major women’s professional circuit. The group signed the $1 contracts with World Tennis publisher Gladys Heldman to protest prize-money inequality.

King’s playing record remains one of tennis’s most decorated: 12 of her Grand Slam titles came in singles, 16 in women’s doubles and 11 in mixed doubles. She became world No. 1 after telling her parents as a child that she intended to reach the top of the sport.

The documentary focuses heavily on 1973, when King defeated Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes exhibition. In the film, King describes that year as “the pivotal year in women’s tennis,” while also saying she was “a mess, emotionally.”

King told the Guardian that her private struggle with sexuality affected decisions she made during the sport’s early professional era. She now identifies as a lesbian, and said she feared a public disclosure during her playing career would have damaged the tour’s ability to attract sponsors.

“So what do you think I’m going to do? I’m not going to say anything. I want the tour for everyone.

This is when it’s not about yourself sometimes – it’s about the future of the sport,” King said.

The interview also revisits the personal costs behind that public role. The Guardian said the documentary addresses King’s 1971 abortion, her strained marriage to lawyer and sports promoter Larry King, and her public outing after a relationship with Los Angeles hairdresser Marilyn Barnett ended and Barnett sued her.

King also discussed her childhood in Long Beach, California, where a fifth-grade classmate, Susan Williams, introduced her to tennis when King was 11. She later gained access to free instruction from Clyde Walker at public courts, an experience the interview presents as part of her lifelong interest in access to sport.

Her connection to later generations appears in the film through Serena Williams. King taught Serena and Venus Williams at a 1988 clinic and recalled Serena’s serve at age six as “so beautiful,” adding: “I told her: ‘Don’t let anyone change a thing.’”

The interview places King’s competitiveness beyond tennis. The Guardian said she returned last year to the history degree she left in 1964 and graduated earlier this year, while also discussing body image, health and her use of small doses of GLP-1 weight-loss medication.

King framed the commercial pressure around sexuality as a constraint on the early women’s tour, saying sponsors would not have supported something associated with gay people. That remains her retrospective account of a period when the tour was still trying to establish itself.