Love is blind: Tyler’s Kids, ‘sperm donor’ controversy explained

• Social media is flooded with rumors about Tyler’s relationship with his children in ‘Love Is Blind’.
• Tyler says on the show that he fathered three children as a sperm donor, a fact the children’s mother disputes online.
• It’s the latest example of off-screen drama overshadowing the show. But it’s still good for Netflix.

If you’ve only seen the first six episodes of season seven of “Love Is Blind,” Tyler, 34, and Ashley, 31, seem like a well-matched couple. In the pods, they bonded over their shared faith and values, and Tyler proposed. Their communication style was mature and honest – something Ashley even called their “superpower” as a couple.

It was all so seemingly perfect that when Tyler told Ashley, now his fiancée, in episode six that people from his past might come out of the woodwork and say he was “not that nice,” she read it as a self-aware confession , not a warning of the drama to come.

Four days after that episode aired, it became clear that it was more of the latter.

“The woodwork is woodwork,” reality TV reporter @storytimewithrikkii captioned an Oct. 6 TikTok video titled “Tyler’s GFs coming ‘out of the woodwork.’”

The video, which has been viewed more than 250,000 times as of publication, compiles information Rikkii told Business Insider after being approached by several women who said they were Tyler’s exes.

The most egregious claim in the video, that Tyler fathered three children as a friend’s unofficial sperm donor but lied to women he dated about this fact and the nature of his involvement with the children, comes with clear photo evidence: a man who looks as Tyler laughing with the kids, apparently on vacation, during a pumpkin picking trip, and, most damningly, holding two of them in his arms while wearing a shirt that reads “Dope daddy raising dope kids.”

A full three days Before Netflix would release the episodes in which Tyler would finally discuss the subject with his fiancée Ashley, Tyler’s secret was already online: he fathered three children. Not only that, but his involvement in their lives was disputed on social media.

So far, Tyler has kept quiet on the topic while posting on his social media, aside from cryptically telling a few commenters to be patient and wait for answers as the season progresses.

Tyler did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment, and a Netflix representative declined to comment on either the streamer’s behalf or Tyler’s behalf.

Tyler having children was a topic of conversation on social media weeks before it appeared on ‘Love Is Blind’

As viewers learn at the end of episode nine of ‘Love Is Blind’ season seven, released on October 9, Tyler waited until after the pods, after he got engaged, and after the couple’s getaway in Mexico to tell Ashley that he had gotten the father. three children. During the show he tells her that the children were born via sperm donation and that he has no relationship with them.

The first conversation between Tyler and Ashley takes place off-screen. All we get in “Love Is Blind” is a conversation in the aftermath, in which Ashley is upset and tells Tyler that withholding this information until after they are engaged makes her worry about trust and communication in their relationship.

“This is something I should have known before I said yes,” Ashley tells Tyler.

But viewers of Rikkii’s TikToks were shown a version of events that seems even grimmer than what happens on the show. The TikToker says she spoke to a woman named Lovetta Thomas (identified on Instagram as @love2geaux), who said in posts on Instagram and Facebook that Tyler had fathered three children with her daughter, Bri Thomas.

Lovetta Thomas’s posts, which were viewed by Business Insider before being deleted, included photos of a man resembling Tyler with her daughter, Bri Thomas, and three young children.

Commenting on the deleted post, Lovetta Thomas wrote that Tyler had been an involved father in her grandchildren’s lives for years and that their twins were conceived naturally while Tyler and Bri lived together. Lovetta Thomas said Tyler only distanced himself from the kids after starring in “Love Is Blind.”

Then, in a series of videos shared to Instagram on Saturday, Bri Thomas broke her silence about her history with Tyler, sharing many details that seem to contradict aspects of what Tyler has told Ashley so far on “Love Is Blind” (namely Tyler’s claiming on screen that he thinks the children don’t know what he looks like).

Bri said Tyler, who she described as her former best friend, agreed to help her have a child with her then-wife. After she and her wife separated and their co-parenting relationship transitioned, Tyler stepped in to raise the child. When Bri and Tyler lived together as co-parents, they had twins together, who she said had Tyler’s last name.

Bri, who identifies as a lesbian, said in the videos that she and Tyler were never officially together and dating other people, and she supported his decision to go on “Love Is Blind.” Bri said they even discussed the idea of ​​her and the kids attending his wedding if he made it to the altar. She said Tyler last saw their children on September 30, 2023, when he came to her house the day before he left for filming.

“I have lost my best friend. My children have been rejected and disrespected by their father,” she said in a video.

Neither Bri Thomas nor Lovetta Thomas responded to a request for comment from BI.

Tyler has encouraged viewers to “be patient” and wait for his response

So far, Tyler has not directly addressed the allegations, but has referenced the drama in several comments on his Instagram posts, cryptically teasing that the truth will soon be exposed.

In response to a commenter who said they were interested in an explanation as to why he said he thought the kids didn’t know what he looked like, Tyler said, “I don’t owe anyone in this world an explanation. But I’ll give it lol, the conversation was longer than what was shown and there was a lot of conversation off camera.

In other comments, Tyler said that the cameras weren’t filming all the time and that there were other conversations that weren’t shown, insinuating that there was more to what he told Ashley about the kids during filming.

In response to a comment accusing him of trying to “delete your past to start over,” Tyler said that wasn’t true and asked the user to “just be patient,” saying that he had it all would explain very soon – presumably at the “Love Is Blind” season seven reunion.

He also responded to several other positive comments and thanked users for their support.

As for Tyler’s “Love Is Blind” fiancée Ashley, she hasn’t officially commented yet either. But she reportedly appeared to reference the allegations against Tyler and defend him in a since-deleted reply to a comment on her Instagram (saved by @storytimewithrikkii in a new video).

None of this drama was caught on camera, but it’s still good for Netflix’s bottom line

This isn’t the first time the biggest drama on ‘Love Is Blind’ has played out off-screen and been revealed via social media.

Season four featured a messy series of antics from Jackie and Marshall, whose breakup led to leaked text messages in which Jackie insinuated that Marshall was gay. Season five was so dramatic that Renee and Carter’s journey was cut entirely from the edit – and resulted in a lawsuit that is currently in arbitration.

And season six, released in February 2024, featured not one but two men accused of mischaracterizing their relationship status before going on the show: fan favorite Trevor had a girlfriend during filming, and Jeramey had a whole other ex-fiance before he left. on the show.

Despite the lawsuit and despite being picked up by TikTok, the off-screen banter is good for Netflix. After all, feeding the rumor mill (and the TikTok explainer economy) keeps the show in the cultural conversation.

According to Netflix’s own statistics, more than 30 million subscribers watched the first season of “Love Is Blind” within the first four weeks of its premiere. That success has only grown over the years as the off-screen drama gets messier and season six becomes the most-watched season in the franchise’s history.

Tyler and Ashley are one of three remaining couples ahead of the October 23 wedding episodes, when viewers will find out if they actually tied the knot.

But whether they actually close the deal or part ways at the altar, the speculative stories online all but guarantee that Netflix will get eyeballs during the reunion episode airing on October 30.

For viewers who have been following it online and are waiting to hear Tyler’s side of the story, this is must-see TV.