--- title: Serena Williams Says She Tried to Deposit Her First $1 Million Check at Her Bank's Drive-Thru description: Although Serena Williams is one of the world's highest paid athletes, the tennis star has never let money get in the way of her career authors: - name: Mahita Gajanan url: https://money.com/author/mahita-gajanan/ at_money_since: 2017 articles: 53 covers: - Personal Finance - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Housing - Identity Theft - Investing - Lifestyle - Shopping - Taxes social: - https://x.com/mahitagajanan former_staff: true published: '2017-07-12T20:15:01.000Z' modified: '2024-05-16T12:34:25.000Z' section: Personal Finance tags: - serena williams - Sports word_count: 218 canonical: https://money.com/serena-williams-million-dollars-finance-bank/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Serena Williams](https://img.money.com/2017/07/gettyimages-487315628-1.jpg) *Serena Williams of the United States returns a shot against Venus Williams of the United States during their Women's Singles Quarterfinals match on Day Nine of the 2015 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 8, 2015 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.* Although [Serena Williams](https://time.com/4834270/serena-williams-john-mcenroe/) is one of the [world's highest paid athletes](https://www.forbes.com/profile/serena-williams/?list=athletes), the tennis star has never let money get in the way of her career. "I've actually never played for money — I just thought you would go out there and hold a trophy," Williams said on *Kneading Dough*, a personal finance video series from Uninterrupted, a sports media company. "Not once did I think about a check." In fact, Williams was so unconcerned about how much she earned that she tried to deposit her first million-dollar check into her account using a bank's drive-thru, [Business Insider reports](http://www.businessinsider.com/what-serena-williams-did-first-million-dollar-check-2017-7). "I never touched \[the money\] — just put it in the bank," she told Uninterrupted CEO and sports business manager Maverick Carter. "And I remember I went through the drive-thru to deposit my check, and then they were like, 'I think you need to come in for this,' and so I ended up going inside." Williams, who earned $27 million last year and is the highest-paid female athlete in the world, said her parents raised her with a good sense of financial security. "Looking back, I'm like, we lived in a two-bedroom house with seven people," she said. "I don't know how my parents were able to make me feel that way, but they did, and that was something really special." ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/serena-williams-million-dollars-finance-bank/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Personal Finance", "item": "https://money.com/personal-finance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Wealth Management", "item": "https://money.com/wealth-management/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Serena Williams Says She Tried to Deposit Her First $1 Million Check at Her Bank's Drive-Thru" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/serena-williams-million-dollars-finance-bank/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/serena-williams-million-dollars-finance-bank/", "name": "Serena Williams Says She Tried to Deposit Her First $1 Million Check at Her Bank's Drive-Thru", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2017-07-12T20:15:01.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/serena-williams-million-dollars-finance-bank/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/serena-williams-million-dollars-finance-bank/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-16T12:34:25.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Serena Williams Says She Tried to Deposit Her First $1 Million Check at Her Bank's Drive-Thru", "articleSection": "Personal Finance", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2017/07/gettyimages-487315628-1.jpg", "width": 5184, "height": 3456, "caption": "Serena Williams" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mahita Gajanan", "url": "https://money.com/author/mahita-gajanan/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/mahita-gajanan/#author", "email": "Mahita.Gajanan@timeinc.com", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/mahitagajanan" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2017-07-12T20:15:01.000Z", "description": "Although Serena Williams is one of the world's highest paid athletes, the tennis star has never let money get in the way of her career", "abstract": "Although Serena Williams is one of the world's highest paid athletes, the tennis star has never let money get in the way of her career", "@id": "https://money.com/serena-williams-million-dollars-finance-bank/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-05-16T12:34:25.000Z", "wordCount": 218, "keywords": [ "serena williams", "Sports" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Personal finance", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_finance" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Wealth management", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_management" ] } ] } ] } ```