Love Is Blind’s Tyler Francis’ Child Custody Case Reopened After Season 7 Filmed
Love Is Blind season 7 star Tyler Francis has found himself in the hot seat amid rumors that he kept his three children a secret from fiancée Ashley Adionser. After filming wrapped, however, Tyler’s child custody case was reopened, Life & Style can exclusively reveal.
The mother of Tyler’s three children, Bri Thomas, initially filed a complaint for petition for custody in Baltimore City Circuit Court in October 2021. The original case was settled on May 6, 2022, according to court records viewed by Life & Style. However, in January – three months after filming for season 7 wrapped – a petition was filed to reopen the case. The case is ongoing with the next disposition hearing scheduled for November 15.
The news comes after days of rumors circulating surrounding the Virginia native and his alleged children. TikTok blogger Storytimewithrikkii shared a video on Sunday, October 8, alleging that Tyler “scrubbed [his children] from his Instagram entirely when he found out he was gonna be on the show.”
“Tyler was very active in all of his children’s lives up until a year ago when he decided to ditch them and pretend like they didn’t exist,” she added in a separate video.
Tyler shares a 7-year-old son and twin 5-year-old daughters with Bri. The kids’ maternal grandmother took to her social media accounts to throw shade at Tyler for “[throwing his] kids away.”
“It’s true… Tyler has 3 kids,” she captioned a TikTok video with a montage of photos of the children with their father, adding, “Well he hadn’t spoken to them in a year!!! And yes they ask about him. Ask to call him. Ask when he’s coming.”
The viral TikTok video also claimed that the twin daughters “actually have his last name.”
However, Life & Style previously confirmed that following his appearance on the reality dating experiment, Bri filed a petition to legally change the girls’ last name from Francis to Thomas.
Two separate petitions for change of name of a minor were filed on February 6, according to court records viewed by Life & Style. Bri asked the judge to legally grant the name change from Francis to Thomas for her twin daughters. The case was closed and the name changes were granted on March 19.
Fans of the dating series have watched Tyler fall in love with Ashley, 32, from behind a wall. The account executive ultimately proposed and she said yes. However, during their trip to Mexico, Tyler subtly hinted about possible skeletons from his past coming “out of the woodworks.”
Tyler told Ashley she “would’ve hated” him if they met outside the pods, adding, “Just prepare [for] people [to] be like, ‘He is not that nice.’ Like, nah, I just wasn’t nice to y’all. I didn’t give them a reason to be nice.”
Ashley was not swayed, however, saying, “There’s nothing that no one can tell me.”
While fans have not seen any of the paternity drama play out on screen, the teaser for the rest of season seemed to hint that it was coming as Ashley is heard telling some of her podmates that Tyler is a sperm donor.
