Meet Tristan Thompson's Kids and Find Out How He Says Fatherhood Has Changed Him
“Liar!” is what reality starKhloé Kardashian jokingly shouted on the night of Thursday, April 7, as she watched her ex-boyfriend, NBA star Tristan Thompson, say he was trying to earn back her trust during a screening of her family's new Hulu reality series The Kardashians. The basketball player was first introduced in Season 13 of the Kardashians’ previous series, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and viewers know just how complicated the history between Kardashian and Thompson has been–including that she’s one of the mothers of Thompson’s children.
If you’re not a basketball fan, Thompson may be best known to you as Kardashian’s paramour. However, the Canadian-born baller currently plays for the Chicago Bulls after signing to the team in February 2022. He's also played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Sacramento Kings, Indianapolis Pacers and Boston Celtic. (The Cavs are the team he helped win a NBA Championship in 2016.)
Before the Kardashians’ new show hits Hulu on Thursday, April 14, here’s what we know about Tristan Thompson’s children and their moms.
How many children does Tristan Thompson have?
Thompson has three children in all: Prince, 5, as of The Kardashians' series premiere; True, 3; and Theo, 4 months old.
Does Tristan Thomas have a son?
Thompson’s first child, a son, was born on December 12, 2016, when his ex-girlfriend, Jordan Craig, a model and daughter of producer Carl Craig, gave birth to their son Prince. Thompson was already seeing Kardashian when Craig was pregnant, and some have wondered if Thompson had cheated on Craig with her. In fact, in court documents, Craig claimed Thompson’s cheating, with Kardashian in particular, "brought an enormous amount of negative, unwanted attention and stress into my life, and more critically, into my pregnancy.”
Thompson and Kardashian fought those claims for years, with Kardashian saying in 2019 that she met Thompson on a blind date and didn’t find out that he had a pregnant ex until later. “Obviously, I was reluctant about us continuing to date or start a relationship,” she said on social media. However, he won her over when he showed her their correspondence and “his best friends, business associates and even his mother told me, him and his ex were broken up before we met.”
Still, Kardashian admitted in an Instagram Story to not being sure that Thompson had been single when they started dating. “This is my truth! The truth I believed and trusted. If for any reason this is NOT in fact the truth, I am so completely and utterly sorry that TRISTAN and his inner circle would lie on something like this! I’m sorry for any pain that has been created either way. No woman deserves to go through anything like this!”
Thompson was clearer: He said he was absolutely single when he met Kardashian. “When I met Khloe I was single,” he tweeted. “The negative comments that are constantly being directed towards her are unnecessary. She does not deserve all this backlash for my wrong doings. Both Khloè and Jordan have been nothing but great mothers to my kids.”
Prince pops up on his mom’s Instagram page frequently. The two have taken winter trips and have met a camel, too.
Does Tristan Thompson have a daughter?
Kardashian and Thompson shared the news that they were going to have their own child in December 2017. “My greatest dream realized! We are having a baby. I had been waiting and wondering but God had a plan all along. He knew what He was doing. I simply had to trust in Him and be patient. I still at times can’t believe that our love created life!” Kardashian posted on Instagram.
However, just days before True was born on April 12, 2018, there were clips being shared of Thompson with another woman. Still, Kardashian wanted to make birth videos for her daughter that would become treasured memories despite her father’s infidelity. “Regardless of what Tristan did to me, I was never going to take that moment away from True or Tristan. She should not be punished for his actions. He is her father and they both deserve to love one another as deeply as they possibly can,” she tweeted in 2018.
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Right before The Kardashian's premiere, Kardashian emphasized that she wanted to make things look good for her daughter. “I remember when he cheated on me right before I gave birth [to True] and I was able to still have him in the delivery room. It might have looked strange to the outside world, but when my daughter watches my home videos, those videos are going to be as pure and perfect as I was able to make them,” she said last week.
And 3-year-old True seems to get along great with mom and dad; she’s already experimenting with makeup and asking mom to “wait” to take a pic until she has the perfect hair and pose and having dad give her a manicure.
Does Tristan Thompson have a relationship with his son?
Personal trainer Maralee Nichols is mom to Theo, Thompson’s youngest son. In 2021, she sued Thompson for child custody and claimed he was the father of her unborn child. Thompson denied it at first, but the paternity results came back a match. In court documents, Thompson claimed he only had sex with Nichols on his 30th birthday. However, Nichols said that his birthday was about five months into their relationship and that it continued afterward.
“Today, paternity test results reveal that I fathered a child with Maralee Nichols,” he admitted on Instagram in January. “I take full responsibility for my actions. Now that paternity has been established I look forward to amicably raising our son.” Thompson then turned his attention to Kardashian, who he’d been in a relationship with when he conceived his second son.
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“Khloé, you don’t deserve this,” he continued. “You don’t deserve the heartache and humiliation I have caused you. You don’t deserve the way I have treated you over the years… I have the utmost respect and love for you. Regardless of what you may think."
Nichols calls Theo her “angel baby” since she did not think she was able to have children. “I couldn’t believe I was pregnant, when I saw you on the ultrasound and heard your little heartbeat I knew I would always protect you and keep you safe,” she wrote on Instagram in February 2022. “I love you more than you’ll ever know. You bring such joy and happiness into my life.” Nichols has still not revealed Theo’s face online, nor has he even met Thompson (who wasn’t present during Theo’s birth), so it’s unknown when he’ll be joining his siblings in a family photo.
Did Jordyn Woods date Tristan?
Thompson and Kardashian reconciled after their daughter True’s birth, but by the next year, more claims of infidelity came to light. Jordyn Woods—whose then-bestie was Kardashian's half-sister, Kylie Jenner—was seeing getting cozy with Thompson in February 2019, less than a year after True was born. However, Woods told Jada Pinkett Smith on Red Table Talk that she only kissed the NBA star.
How much does Tristan Thompson pay in child support?
It’s rumored that Thompson is paying around $40,000 a month to each of his children’s mothers, for a total of $120,000 a month, or $1.5 million a year. That assumes that the documents ordering him to pay $40,000 per month to Craig would not be reduced for the other two women.
Did Khloé Kardashian take Tristan Thompson back?
Even after the Tristan-Jordyn situation, there was some speculation that Khloe and Thompson would reconcile again. They seemed to be closer than ever in 2020, when Kardashian claimed he was her best friend, and that her own parents had taught her how to co-parent children amicably after a split. Kardashian mentioned using Thompson’s sperm so she could freeze embryos (she decided to only freeze eggs in the end). Rumors abounded that the two got back together and had even gotten engaged. But more cheating claims arose.
In April 2021, Instagram model Sydney Chase said that she’d hooked up with Thompson that January and she cut him off after discovering he’d lied about being single. Thompson denied the story, but he and Kardashian ended things for good.More recently, Kardashian said in an interview that even though she thinks Thompson is he’s good father and “great guy,” he simply is “just not the guy for me.”
Even though their relationship is over, Thompson will be seen again in the new Hulu reality show, The Kardashians. "I wish I never had to talk about that because it's not a fun thing to talk about," Khloe shared with Variety."But it is part of my journey in life, so we will see it on the show."
How fatherhood has changed Tristan Thompson
“That’s my best friend” he captured a photo of himself and Prince in February 2022, a day after posting about his “favorite kind of date night” with True. He seems to have an amicable relationship with Craig and Kardashian, and their children even know each other and spend time with Thompson. In October 2021, he posted a shot of Prince and True together, writing "Let me love you a little more, before you are not so little anymore #MyEverything." (Kardashian replied positively to the picture, saying, "They are so beautiful and sweet!!!! So so blessed!!! What angels!")
Thompson admits being a dad has changed him and that he handles his kids a bit differently. “With a boy, it's just like, ‘Hey, man, you'll be all right, man. Stop crying,’” Thompson told a podcast in May 2018. “But, it's like, ‘True, it's gonna be okay, you know? We’re right here. Daddy's here to feed you. It's me! Look, yeah!’ It's way different, but it's fun, though. It changes you.” In the podcast he said he’s “got a couple more [kids]” in him and that he was going to “keep going.” Thompson said last year that he thinks, “the biggest blessing in the world is to be a father.”