Last week, several reports have come out about Tristan Thompson being the subject and target of a paternity suit filed by personal trainer Maralee Nichols who claims she is pregnant with the basketball star's third child.
Us Weekly confirms that Maralee Nichols welcomed a baby boy on Thursday, December 2. On Friday, she revealed in an Instagram post that she has given birth. After taking a photo of the sunset in Marina del Rey, California, she captioned it with, "Took this beautiful photo last night of my new town. I’m learning to focus on the beautiful things around me instead of all of the negative things. Things feel very hard right now but I know eventually, this will all be over and my baby boy and I can live a happy life. I made a mistake, but I’m human. I won’t be posting any personal photos for awhile as I don’t want to hurt my family. Thanks in advance for understanding."
Nichols is currently residing in California after relocating from Houston.
The 30-year old Sacramento Kings player is being sued for child support by the 31-year old fitness instructor. In a report published by Us Weekly after obtaining court records, Nichols attended doctor's appointments in April and May. Her appointment in April which cost $518 was paid for by Thompson. However, according to the docket, the basketball player did not pay for the second appointment. In July, Thompson filed his own documents and submitted the documents to a courthouse in Houston where Nichols is originally from. The personal trainer's lawyer argued that Thompson purposefully filed his complaint in Texas to "save" money on possible child support ruling. Ever since then, the two have been fighting a legal battle with Thompson filing a request to seal the records in November. When August came, Nichols' lawyer persuaded the court to bring in Thompson for a deposition "in the next three to four weeks." In that same month, a text message received by Nichols and was allegedly sent by the former Cleveland Cavaliers player was presented to the court. As per a screenshot submitted in an August filing, the exchange said, "You know how I feel. My feelings haven’t changed at all. won’t be involved at all. Btw if you think having this baby is gonna make you some money. It’s completely wrong. You are aware that I’m retiring after this season. So in terms of support it will be whatever is required monthly for someone who’s unemployed. It’s texas so it will be only a couple hundred dollars. So you better off taking this 75k I’m offering cause you won’t get nothing near that with having a kid with a father who’s unemplyed [sic] All you will have is a baby with a father who has zero involvement with the child and a few hundred dollars of child support a month."
A Zoom hearing for September dates was initially offered. Nevertheless, Thompson was still deposed in October. In November, Nichols filed an objection claiming that the basketball player "refused to answer basic question relating to jurisdictional issues between California and Texas," as it was advised allegedly by his legal team. Other documents obtained showed that Thompson denied sending Nichols text messages, Snapchats, and other sort of communication with regards to her pregnancy "despite the fact this his contact information is present in the messages." In court documents obtained by Page Six, Nichols asserts that Thompson wanted her to abort the child.The documents read, "It is also apparent from the context and substance of these communications that they are from Tristan to Maralee, which reflects that Tristan is addressing the parties’ relationship, and even with respect to her pregnancy insisting that she get an abortion and threatening that she will get next to nothing with lesser support requirements in Texas."
Thompson's trysts with Nichols reportedly happened in March, while celebrating the Canada native's birthday. At the time, he was still dating reality star Khloe Kardashian. In a declaration obtained by the Daily Mail, Thompson confessed to having sexual intercourse with Nichols multiple times at a hotel after the both of them attended a party together. In July, he filed a request in court demanding her to take a paternity test. As of November 15, she had still not taken a test. In a subsequent filing, Thompson promised to pay child support if the child was his.
Thompson has two children. He shares a son with his ex-girlfriend Jordan Craig and a daughter with Khloe Kardashian. A few days before Kardashian gave birth, Thompson was reported to have cheated on her with multiple women. Kardashian initially forgave him but parted ways in February 2019 after reports emerged that he kissed the Kardashian's close family friend, Jordyn Woods. They got back together in 2020 and called it quits once again in June of this year.
