Ailing ‘King Richard’ Williams is on the cusp of losing the family home where Serena and Venus grew up.
The 80-year-old father has turned to his faith as a Jehovah’s Witness in the bitter $600k debt divorce battle with his estranged wife. The aging tennis coach has turned to God while fighting his spouse Lakeisha through the courts.
He is reported to have had a traumatic few years, suffering from two strokes, and his doctor told the court that he had dementia and was “totally incapacitated” with major speech problems.
But recent pictures posted by his son Chavoita Lesane show that Richard is at least mobile, as he was walking in a house during the online video but didn’t manage to say any words.
At least he’s been well enough to post inspirational quotes online, such as “Divorce is okay. Breaking up is okay. Starting over is okay. Moving on is okay. Being alone is okay. What is not okay is staying somewhere you’re not valued and appreciated.”
One states: “Nothing is stronger than a broken man rebuilding himself,” while another adds: “A pretty face is nothing if you have an ugly heart”.
One more says: “Don’t let yourself be controlled by three things: people, money, or your past.”
It was reported that in 2017, Lakeisha – aged 43 and 37 years younger than Richard – allegedly faked his signature on mortgage docs to sign their house away to her and proceeded to borrow $255,000 from “hard lender” David Simon, court docs claims.
Lakeisha allegedly blew the lot on a failed trucking business and Simon claimed her financial problems stem from spending every cent on “fast food and frivolities” instead of keeping up with the roughly $8,000-a-month repayment plan over five years.
He wants the family home sold at auction to pay off his original debt, now at around $623,000, including interest.
To stall this, Lakeisha has failed twice with Chapter 13 bankruptcy and is currently filing a third time, according to court docs.
When Richard found out his signature had been forged, giving his wife control of the four-bed property in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, he filed for divorce, per court docs.
The Williams family are staunch Jehovah’s Witnesses and Richard is proud to show off his faith online, posting multiple times a picture of a red cap with the world’s “Jehovah My God”.
It also appears that he’s been bible studying with photos of texts such as “What Does The Bible Really Teach?”, a “New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures,” and “The Truth that leads to Eternal Life”.
He’s friendly with other deeply religious people, including a holistic healer who “manifests healings in the body without medicine or surgery”.
In the past, his daughter Serena has spoken about her Jehovah’s Witness faith, which forbids celebrating birthdays and Christmas, as there’s no proof he was born on December 25 and they believe in commemorating his death, not birth, according to the official jw.org website.
After winning a match at Wimbledon in 2015, she said: “I have to thank Jehovah God for this. I was down and out, and he helped me today, and I just said prayers, not to win but to be strong and to be healthy, and in the end, I was able to come through, so I have to give the glory to him first and foremost.”
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