Inside King Richard’s bitter fight with his third wife Lakeisha after she accused Serena of locking her out of home
VENUS and Serena Williams' father Richard has been locked in a bitter legal battle with his third wife ever since the pair filed for divorce in 2017.
The messy split even led to Lakeisha Juanita Williams accusing one of her tennis champ stepdaughters of threatening to lock her out of her home.
And she accused Richard - who she married in 2010 - of driving through poor neighborhoods to look at women.
Here The Sun takes a look at the couple's turbulent relationship and its impact on Richard Williams - the subject of Oscar nominated biopic King Richard.
Court documents from 2017 show Serena was accused of telling her stepmom to leave the family home.
Lakeisha told a judge that a letter from the tennis star's lawyers "threatened to change the locks" if she did not vacate the property with their young son.
The six time US Open champ did not answer those claims at the time.
Lakeisha - who has one child with Richard - also accused him of being "erratic" and owning an "arsenal including an AK-47".
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She claimed in divorce papers that he "acted hostile" during their marriage and she feared he'd harm their young son, reported in 2017.
The couple married in 2010 when Lakeisha was 32 and Richard 69.
Amid their messy divorce, Lakeisha also claimed Williams used to drive through poor neighborhoods looking at women.
FORGED SIGNATURE CLAIMS
In her 2019 deposition testimony, she said: "He did likes to drive, you know, and not stating anything. He likes to go through poor neighborhoods.
"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."
But Williams hit back with his own allegation, claiming Lakeisha forged his signature to transfer their West Palm Beach property into her name.
Lakeisha admitted imitating his writing, but said in court documents he asked her to do everything for him due to ill health, and the deeds and mortgage were all notarized and witnessed at a loan company.
Exclusive pictures obtained by The Sun earlier last month show the $1.1 million home they once shared together in Florida.
RUN DOWN HOME
Richard bought the 10-acre Florida property in 1995.
Photos now show the worn-down exterior of the four-bedroom mansion's exterior just weeks before it's set to go up for auction.
The wood sidings appear frayed and rotted through, the white pillars along lined up outside the front door are discolored and the home is surrounded by overgrown dead crabgrass and shrubbery.
Aerial views on GoogleMaps show two tennis courts in the back yard of the dead-end street.
Richard lost the property in the 2017 divorce from Lakeisha and his name was removed from the home.
He has already faced accusations he walked out on his first wife and kids.
Speaking to The Sun, Sabrina said Richard's desertion when she was just eight years old hit the family very hard.
'WALKS OUT ON FIRST FAMILY'
She accused her father of walking out after telling her he was going out to buy her a bike and never returning.
That left wife Betty - Sabrina's mom - to raise their six children alone.
"I had two childhoods, the childhood from one to eight was fantastic," Sabrina recalled.
"But once he left, within a year, we became very poor. There wasn’t always meals on the table. We went downhill."
Former tennis coach Williams is portrayed by Will Smith in the new Hollywood hit movie.
The film was on Tuesday nominated for five Oscars.
THIRD MARRIAGE
Richard married Sabrina's late mom Betty Johnson in Los Angeles in the early sixties and they had four other children - Richard III, 56, Ronner, 55, Reluss, 54, and 49-year-old Reneeka.
In Williams' second marriage to Oracene Price in 1980, the pair had Venus and Serena.
Amid marrying, they moved to Compton, California.
However, Price and Williams divorced in 2002.
Richard then married Lakeisha in 201. The couple share one son Dylan.
The new movie King Richard shows how a man with no background in tennis and very limited financial resources guided his daughters to unprecedented success.
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It reveals the racism, violence, and hardship the Williams family had to overcome.
And it details just how "complicated" a man the three times married Richard is, according to Oscar-nominated actor Will Smith.
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