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.
Who 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.
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.
|
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 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.
|
Featured Product Lesbian Pride Flag (Sunset) The five-stripe sunset lesbian flag. The same flag Billie Jean and Ilana have hanging in the home they share in New York. 3x5 ft, weatherproof. Shop Now → |
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.
|
Featured Product Lesbian Soft Plush Blanket Same five-stripe sunset palette, 50 by 60 inches of plush flannel. For Pride Month watch parties, courtside in the cold, or curling up with the Battle of the Sexes biopic. Shop Now → |
What people get wrong about Billie Jean King
MYTH 01
She came out willingly.
She did not. The 1981 palimony suit forced her hand. She has been open about how much she resisted, and how much of the next two decades she spent doing therapy to make peace with her own sexuality. The press conference where she admitted the affair was the hardest moment of her career, and she made it look easy on camera because that is what she had been trained to do.
MYTH 02
The Battle of the Sexes was rigged or scripted.
An ESPN report in 2013 quoted a mob source claiming Bobby Riggs threw the match to settle gambling debts. Almost everyone who actually played pro tennis at the time, including Riggs's son and his coach, has dismissed it. Riggs trained hard. He had genuinely beaten Margaret Court four months earlier. He just lost. People who saw the match in person say King was simply quicker, fitter, and smarter than him on the day.
MYTH 03
She only cared about tennis.
She turned down the chance to play Wimbledon in 1972 in protest of unequal pay. She organized the first ever women's pro tour, the Virginia Slims circuit, after the men's tour refused to give women equal prize money. She has lobbied four US presidents on Title IX. She has served on AIDS Foundation boards since the early 1990s and sits on the boards of GLAAD and her own Women's Sports Foundation today. Tennis was the lever. The rest was the work.
MYTH 04
Title IX was someone else's fight.
Title IX passed in June 1972. King had already been fighting in the press for two years for equal pay and equal facilities for women athletes. She was the most visible spokesperson for the law's enforcement once it passed. The Women's Sports Foundation she founded in 1974 has spent 50 years suing schools and lobbying Congress to keep Title IX intact. When people talk about the law as if it just appeared from nowhere, they are skipping over half a decade of King doing the unglamorous work.
She is 82 years old now. She still answers email. She still shows up at the US Open. She still tells reporters, as she has for 50 years, that her real heroes are the women who came before her and the kids who will come after.
|
Featured Product Love Wins Heart Tee The phrase that ended up on the White House the night of Obergefell. The fight Billie Jean King helped underwrite for 40 years. Soft cotton, runs true to size. Shop Now → |
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.
Keep reading: Billie Jean King beat the system the same way Pauli Murray beat Jim Crow and Jane Crow, the same way Edie Windsor beat DOMA, and the same way Audre Lorde built a movement from a podium. The lesbian flag she flies has its own story too, told in our guide to the lesbian pride flag. And if you want to honor her work this June, the full plan is in Pride Month 2026.
|
Fly the flag she flew. Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss have lived under the sunset stripes since Emily Gwen debuted the design in 2018. Get yours below. |
