Grimes is suing Elon Musk over parental rights regarding the former couple’s three children.
The musician, whose real name is Claire Boucher, filed a “petition to establish parental relationship” in San Francisco Superior Court on Sept. 29.
This petition is often filed to establish a child’s legal parents if they are unmarried, but it can also be used to seek child support or custody. As of Monday, Grimes hasn’t requested either from Musk per court records, and Musk hasn’t yet responded to the filing.
Grimes and Musk, who split in 2021 after four years of dating, have three children: 3-year-old son X Æ A-12 (nicknamed X), 20-month-old daughter Exa Dark Sideræl (nicknamed Y), and another son Techno Mechanicus (called Tau), whose birth was revealed to have happened last year in a new biography about Musk by Walter Isaacson.
While the details of the petition aren’t currently known or public, a since-deleted post from Grimes on X earlier this month seemed to allude to Musk not letting her see one of their sons, prompting suspicion the lawsuit is in regard to that parental relationship.
In the post, Grimes addressed Shivon Zilis, who shares 19-month-old twins with Musk and is an executive at his company Neuralink, as well as her ex, writing, “Tell Shivon to unblock me and tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer. I have never even been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite the situation utterly ripping my family apart.”
The second sentence seems to be in regards to a photo Isaacson shared of Musk and Zilis with the twins, whose existence Musk kept from Grimes, Isaacson said in his biography.
Days after that post on X, however, Grimes posted again saying she and Zilis had spoken “at length” and “we’re excited to become friends and have the kids grow up together.”
Hey, I wud prefer to not breathe any more life into this current press cycle but I want to de-escalate the narrative atm.
I spoke with Shivon at length finally, which was long overdue. This wasn’t her fault, plz don’t be angry at her! We respect each other a lot and we’re…
— Grimes (@Grimezsz) September 10, 2023
In addition to his three kids with Grimes and two with Zilis, Musk has twins and triplets with his ex-wife Justine Musk, with whom he shares custody of the five kids.