Meet Lakeisha Graham, Serena & Venus Williams’s Stepmother

Lakeisha Graham is the ex-wife of former tennis coach Richard Williams and stepmother to tennis superstars Serena Williams and Venus Williams.

She and her ex-husband share a son called Dylan Starr Richard Williams who was born on August 2012.

As the third wife of Richard Williams, Lakeisha Graham’s relationship with the Williams family continues to be a subject of interest for fans and those in the tennis community. 

We did some digging to find out more about her and here’s what we came up with.

Lakeisha Graham Bio

Born: 1979, United States

Birth name: Lakeisha Juanita Graham

Nationality: American

Parents: N/A

Known for: being Richard Dove Williams Jr. (Richard Williams) ex-wife and stepmother to Serena Williams and Venus Williams

Marital Status: Divorced

Children: One son – Dylan Starr Richard Williams

Lakeisha Graham Age: 44 as of 2023

Education: N/A

Occupation: Entrepreneur and nurse’s assistant by trade

Lakeisha Graham Instagram: To be confirmed

Net Worth: N/A

Lakeisha Graham Early Life

Lakeisha Graham, born in the United States in 1979, has kept her early life under wraps, making it difficult to find information about her family background, including her parents and siblings.

Unfortunately, the details about her upbringing remain scarce.

Lakeisha Graham Education

Unfortunately, we could not find any information about the schools that Lakeisha Graham attended.

Though we can assume she did a course related to business management at the university as she used to be a grocery store owner before she met and married her ex-husband Richard Williams.

Lakeisha Graham Career

Before her marriage to Richard Williams in 2010, Lakeisha Graham was a grocery store owner. However, the exact duration of her ownership is unknown.

Despite her previous business success, Lakeisha faced financial challenges during her marriage to Richard Williams.

In particular, she took out a $255,000 loan from hard lender David Simon, which she invested in a trucking business that ultimately failed.

According to Simon, she failed to keep up with the repayment plan and was accused of using all her cash on non-essential expenses, such as fast food and frivolous spending.

Lakeisha Graham is a nurse’s assistant by trade.

Lakeisha Graham Marriage and Family Life

Richard Williams met Lakeisha Juanita Graham while she was a grocery store owner and they married in 2010 after dating for a while.

They got married at a small wedding in the presence of family and friends. At the time, Lakeisha was 32 while Richard was 69.

The couple was blessed with a son, Dylan Starr Richard Williams who was born on August 2012.

Serena Williams, who was experiencing being a big sister for the first time, shared with tennis.com that she felt like a grandmother at the time of her half-brother’s birth.

With a laugh, she also added that she was a little envious that Dylan’s middle name, Starr, was the same as Venus’s middle name, instead of her own, Jameka.

Lakeisha Graham was a supportive stepmother to her tennis superstar stepdaughters Serena Wiliams and Venus Williams.

She and her husband were often seen in public cheering them on during their tennis games.

Lakeisha Graham: Her Money Scandal Messy Divorce from Richard Williams

In 2017, Richard Williams filed for divorce from his wife Lakeisha Graham after seven years of marriage.

In his petition, Williams, who was 75 at the time, claimed that his 38-year-old wife was an alcoholic and was stealing his social security checks.

He also accused her of transferring ownership of their cars and a house to herself by forging his signature.

Court documents reveal that Williams was concerned that his wife’s lifestyle, including her association with a person facing serious criminal charges, was not conducive to raising their minor child.

In asking the judge for a parenting plan, court papers alleged: 

“The husband is concerned that the wife is addicted to alcohol.”

Lakeisha Graham declined to comment on the allegations when reached by phone.

She, however, filed a counter-claim accusing Williams of being erratic and owning an arsenal of weapons, including an AK-47.

In her deposition, she claimed that he used to drive through poor neighbourhoods to look at women and that she had imitated his writing on the mortgage and other documents due to his ill health.

In her 2019 deposition testimony, she said: 

“He likes to take me like Downtown Los Angeles. He always liked to take me to neighborhoods where, you know, there was Black women, because he likes women. Yes, so to speak.”

The court documents also showed that Lakeisha Graham accused Serena Williams of telling her to leave the family home.

Lakeisha told a judge that a letter from Serena’s lawyers “threatened to change the locks” if she did not vacate the property with her young son.

Serena Williams who is a six-time US Open champ did not answer those claims.

In 2022, she appointed a specialist foreclosure company to sell the family home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, after a five-year court battle over allegations that she had faked her ex-husband’s signature on the mortgage deed.

This move to a close the 5-year court case where Lekeisha allegedly faked the signature of her ex-husband to change the mortgage deed into her name after the four-bed property had been in the Williams family since 1995.

At one time, Lakeisha Graham took out a $255,000 loan with “hard lender” David Simon, which she is accused of spending on a doomed trucking business and failing to keep up with a repayment plan, being accused by Simon of spending all her cash on “fast food and frivolities”.

She tried to delay the foreclosure by declaring herself bankrupt three times, but two of those attempts were declined.

The once-smart home had fallen into disrepair and was estimated to be worth only about half its appraised value due to its condition.

The sale was handled by Get Liquid Funding LLC, which will receive 12% of the proceeds for their services, while Lakeisha Graham will receive the remaining 88%. That is $196,199 and $26,754, respectively.

At one point, it appeared that the couple had reconciled, with Lakeisha halting their divorce and asking the court to dismiss the case.

Through her lawyer, she states that they “have engaged in an active marital life including having regular weekly sexual relations including but not limited to on January 9, 2022.”

Lakeisha’s Personal Life

Unfortunately, not much information is available about Lakeisha Graham beyond her marriage to Richard Williams and the messy details of their divorce.

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