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Billie Jean King memoir

‘All In’ due out in August

NEW YORK — Billie Jean King has a memoir coming this summer, and she calls it a journey to her “authentic self.”

Alfred A. Knopf announced Thursday that “All In: An Autobiography” will be published Aug. 17. It will cover the highlights of her celebrated and groundbreaking tennis career, including her 39 Grand Slam titles and her defeat of Bobby Riggs in the famous “Battle of the Sexes” match in 1973.

King, 77, also will write about her activism on behalf of women in tennis and beyond, and such private struggles as an eating disorder and acknowledging her sexual identity. She was married to Larry King (no relation to the late broadcaster) for more than a decade before being outed in 1981. She has said she did not feel entirely comfortable being gay until she was 51.

“Early on, what was most apparent to me was that the world I wanted didn’t exist yet,” King writes in her book, according to an excerpt provided by Knopf. “It would be up to my generation to create it.”

King also is the author of “Pressure is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes,” released in 2008. King published a memoir in the early 1980s, “Billie Jean King: The Autobiography,” but says she rushed it out at the urging of her then-manager, who was concerned about her finances in the wake of her outing.

“That book was incomplete and written at a moment when I was not ready to share my truth,” she said in a statement to The Associated Press. “‘All In’ is the first portrait of my life in full, told in my own words.”

Prince Philip recovering

from heart surgery

LONDON — Prince Philip has had a successful heart procedure at a London hospital and is expected to remain for several days of “rest and recuperation,” Buckingham Palace said Thursday.

The palace said the 99-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II “underwent a successful procedure for a pre-existing heart condition at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.”

“His royal highness will remain in hospital for treatment, rest and recuperation for a number of days,” the palace said in a statement.

Philip, 99, has been hospitalized since being admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital in London on Feb. 16, where he was treated for an infection. On Monday he was transferred to a specialized cardiac care hospital, St. Bartholomew’s.

Philip’s illness is not believed to be related to the coronavirus. Both Philip and the monarch received COVID-19 vaccinations in January and chose to publicize the matter to encourage others to also take the vaccine.

Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, retired in 2017 and rarely appears in public. Before his hospitalization, Philip had been isolating at Windsor Castle, west of London, with the queen.

His illness comes as the royal family braces for the broadcast of an interview conducted by Oprah Winfrey with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Meghan and husband Prince Harry quit royal duties last year and moved to California, citing what they said were the unbearable intrusions and racist attitudes of the British media.

Relations between the couple and the palace appear to have become increasingly strained. On Wednesday, the palace said it was launching a human resources investigation after a newspaper reported that a former aide had accused Meghan of bullying staff in 2018.

By the Associated Press

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