Billie Jean King won 39 Grand Slam titles. She also bet her career, her endorsements, and her reputation on one bigger thing: the radical idea that women and queer people deserved a fair shot. She lost the endorsements. The bet paid off anyway.
The short version
- Billie Jean King won 39 Grand Slam titles and used her stature to demand equal pay and opportunity in professional tennis.
- Her straight-sets victory over Bobby Riggs in the 1973 Battle of the Sexes reached an estimated 90 million viewers.
- King founded the Women's Tennis Association and the Women's Sports Foundation, creating institutions that outlasted her playing career.
- After being outed in 1981, she lost major endorsements but eventually became a leading advocate for LGBTQ+ equality in sports.
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$0.00Who is Billie Jean King
Billie Jean Moffitt was born in Long Beach, California in 1943. Her parents were working class. Her father drove a fire truck. Her younger brother Randy would go on to pitch in the major leagues, which gives you some idea what dinner table conversation looked like.
She picked up a tennis racket at age 11, paid for her first one with money she saved doing odd jobs around the neighborhood, and decided that day she was going to be the best player in the world. She was. She held the women's world number one ranking for six separate years between 1966 and 1975, won Wimbledon singles six times, the US Open four times, the French Open once, and the Australian Open once, plus a stack of doubles and mixed doubles titles that pushes her career Grand Slam total to 39.
But the trophies are not why most people know her name. They know her because in 1973, in front of 30,492 people in the Houston Astrodome and an estimated 90 million more watching on television in 37 countries, she beat a 55-year-old man in straight sets. And they know her because eight years later, a former assistant filed a palimony suit that outed her against her will, cost her every endorsement she had, and made her the first openly lesbian global sports star whether she wanted to be or not.
King's 1973 season joined athletic dominance with a public campaign for equal prize money.
The Battle of the Sexes was not a publicity stunt
Bobby Riggs was a former Wimbledon champion turned hustler who had built a second career on a single bit: women's tennis was inferior, and any halfway decent man could beat the best woman alive. In May 1973 he proved it by beating Margaret Court, then the top-ranked woman in the world, 6-2, 6-1, in what the press called the Mother's Day Massacre.
Riggs wanted King next. King had refused him twice. After watching Court fold under the pressure, she said yes.
The match was set for September 20, 1973, at the Astrodome. Promoters threw $100,000 at it, winner take all. King walked in carried by four shirtless men on a litter dressed as Cleopatra. Riggs rode in on a rickshaw pulled by models. It was theater. The match itself was not.
King ran Riggs corner to corner for two hours and four minutes and beat him 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. He never broke her serve.
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90 million Estimated worldwide TV audience for the Battle of the Sexes on September 20, 1973. It is still one of the most watched tennis matches in history. |
Sports historians argue about how much that one match actually moved the needle on women's tennis. The honest answer is: a lot. Two months earlier King had threatened to boycott the US Open if women's prize money was not equal to men's. The USTA caved that year. The other three Grand Slams took longer. Wimbledon held out until 2007. But the Astrodome made the argument impossible to wave away. You cannot say a woman cannot compete with a man after one just did, on prime time television, in front of the largest audience in tennis history.
Billie Jean King the founder, not just the player
| WTA (1973) | Founded the Women's Tennis Association in a hotel room a week before Wimbledon |
| Women's Sports Foundation (1974) | Created to fund and lobby for women athletes at every level |
| World TeamTennis (1974) | Co-founded the league with then-husband Larry King, first major US league to have men and women as equal teammates |
| WSC and BJK Cup | Davis Cup equivalent for women, renamed the Billie Jean King Cup in 2020 |
Outed in 1981, and what it cost her
In April 1981, Marilyn Barnett, a former hairdresser King had hired as a personal assistant and had an affair with in the early 1970s, filed a palimony suit in California seeking lifetime support and the deed to King's Malibu beach house. King was 37, still playing, still married to Larry King, and not out to the public.
Her advisors told her to deny everything. She held a press conference and did the opposite.
She admitted the affair. She said it had been a mistake. She apologized to her husband and her parents. She did not apologize for being attracted to a woman, because in 1981 she was still working out what that meant. She lost an estimated $2 million in endorsement contracts within 24 hours. Avon, Wimbledon Sportswear, Murjani, all gone. She kept playing. She kept losing money. The tour kept her on.
King kept competing after being outed, even as sponsors withdrew their support.
King has said in dozens of interviews since that the worst part of that period was not the lost money. It was the lying she had done to herself first. She did not come out as a lesbian publicly until 1998, when she was 54. She and Larry King divorced in 1987. She has been partnered with Ilana Kloss, a former South African tennis champion and businesswoman, since the 1980s. They married in 2018 after marriage equality was federal law.
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What Billie Jean King built that is still standing
| 1 | Equal prize money at the US Open. She threatened a boycott in 1973. The US Open agreed that year. It was the first Grand Slam to pay men and women equally. The other three Slams followed, with Wimbledon last in 2007. Every female tennis player who has cashed a Slam check since owes part of it to that 1973 letter. |
| 2 | The WTA, which still runs women's pro tennis. Founded by King in a hotel room at the Gloucester Hotel in London in June 1973, one week before Wimbledon. Sixty-three of the world's top women players signed on within 48 hours. The tour today is a billion-dollar enterprise. |
| 3 | The Women's Sports Foundation. Created in 1974 to fund, lobby for, and advocate around women athletes at every level. It is the reason a girl playing soccer in 2026 has a school program, gear, and a pathway. It pushed for Title IX enforcement for decades. |
| 4 | The first major US sports venue named for a woman. The USTA renamed its Flushing Meadows facility the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 2006. It hosts the US Open every year. Walk in and her name is the first thing you see. |
| 5 | The Billie Jean King Cup, women's tennis world cup. The Davis Cup equivalent for women was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup in 2020. It is the highest team competition in women's tennis. She is the only person, of any gender, to have a Grand Slam tournament venue and an international team competition both named for them. |
The Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2009. The Congressional Gold Medal from Joe Biden in 2024, the first time the honor went to an individual female athlete. Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year in 1972, the first woman ever to win that title. Time put her on its list of the 100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century. The list runs longer than this article will allow.
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Frequently asked questions
How many Grand Slam titles did Billie Jean King win?
39 Grand Slam titles total. 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. Her Wimbledon record is the standout: she holds the all-time record for combined titles at one Slam with 20 trophies between 1961 and 1979.
Did Billie Jean King really beat Bobby Riggs?
Yes. 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in straight sets on September 20, 1973 at the Houston Astrodome. The match was watched by an estimated 90 million people in 37 countries. Bobby Riggs was 55. Billie Jean was 29. He never broke her serve.
When did Billie Jean King come out as gay?
She was outed against her will in 1981 when a former partner, Marilyn Barnett, filed a palimony suit. She came out publicly as a lesbian in a magazine interview in 1998 at age 54. She has said the gap between those two dates was filled with therapy, denial, and the work of accepting herself.
Is Billie Jean King married?
Yes. She is married to Ilana Kloss, a South African former world number one doubles player and longtime business partner. They have been a couple since the mid 1980s and married legally in 2018, three years after Obergefell made marriage equality the law nationwide. They live in New York and Chicago.
What did Billie Jean King do for equal pay in sports?
In 1973 she threatened to boycott the US Open if women's prize money was not equal to men's. The US Open agreed that year, becoming the first Grand Slam to pay equally. She also founded the Women's Tennis Association the same summer, which gave women players collective negotiating power. The other three Grand Slams followed over the next 34 years. Wimbledon was last, in 2007.
What awards has Billie Jean King received?
The Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2009. The Congressional Gold Medal from Joe Biden in 2024, the first time the honor has gone to an individual female athlete. The USTA renamed its national tennis center after her in 2006. The Fed Cup was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup in 2020. Sports Illustrated named her Sportsperson of the Year in 1972, the first time a woman had ever won the honor.
Why is Billie Jean King important to LGBTQ+ history?
She was the first openly lesbian global sports star, and she paid the full price for it in lost endorsements before being out was survivable in pro sports. Every queer athlete who has come out since has stood on the floor she built, often by losing money on her behalf. She also bankrolled and lobbied for marriage equality, Title IX, and AIDS research for four decades after her playing career ended.
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