Grimes has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk over a matter involving their three children.
The Canadian singer—real name Claire Boucher—specifically filed a “petition to establish parental relationship” on Friday. The case is effectively a request for a court order to identify the legal parents of a child and is typically used when the parents aren’t married.
Grimes has not requested custody rights or child support, which are often filed along with such a petition. Musk, 52, and Grimes, 35, were never married but had three children together over the course of their relationship, which began in 2018.
The couple’s first child, a boy they named X Æ A-Xii, was born in May 2020. The following year, they had a daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl, via surrogate, though Grimes later said that the child had been renamed to “Y” or “?”
Last month, journalist Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk revealed that the SpaceX boss and Grimes had also had a third child in secret. It’s not clear when the boy—who was named Techno Mechanicus but is apparently affectionately referred to as “Tau”—was born.
Musk also welcomed twins in 2021 with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis. In a post on Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) platform last month, Isaacson shared images of the SpaceX chief alongside Zilis and their twins, Azure and Strider.
“Tell Shivon to unblock me and tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer,” Grimes replied to Isaacson’s post. “I have never even been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite the situation utterly ripping my family apart.”
Grimes later deleted the post and shared a follow-up message days later saying she wanted to “de-escalate the narrative.” “I spoke with Shivon at length finally, which was long overdue,” she wrote. “This wasn’t her fault, plz don’t be angry at her! We respect each other a lot and we’re excited to become friends and have the kids grow up together.”
“I truly apologize for responding to Walter like that,” she added. “As u can imagine, that was a very gut level reaction to a thing that has been very hard for me. Communication about the twins wasn’t handled super well in the past, but I now totally understand what happened and totally forgive the situation.”
Zilis responded to the apology, writing: “At the end of the day it all ended up for the best!”
“Thank you for taking the time to really connect and understand each other,” Zilis added. “So glad we had such a wonderful talk, was insanely overdue. You’re a total badass and I respect you very much as well. I can’t wait for kiddo play date and congrats on baby Tau as well!”