Tristan Thompson has scored in the court of law. The basketball player, 30, won a conditional default judgment in a libel lawsuit against a woman that he said falsely claimed he fathered her son.
Kimberly Alexander was ordered to pay him $50,000 in general damages and $2,901.95 in costs, in a conditional default judgment issued on Tuesday, June 22.
Thompson filed his lawsuit against Alexander in May 2020, after she claimed he is the father of her 5-year-old son. (He is, in fact, dad to 4-year-old Prince Thompson with Jordan Craig and 3-year-old True Thompson with Khloe Kardashian).
“Plaintiff contends DNA test results revealed he is not the father,” according to the judgment obtained by E! News.
He originally requested $100,000 in damages for “damages for loss of reputation, shame, mortification, and hurt feelings,” and Thompson testified that he had not received an endorsement deal since January 2020. However, the judge found there was “insufficient evidence” that Alexander’s accusations were the cause and granted him $50,000 instead, per the court document.
The judge’s ruling is conditional and relies on Tristan filing a dismissal of 10 additional, anonymous Doe defendants that he believed to be “responsible in some manner” for the damages.
Before suing Alexander, both Thompson and Kardashian sent a cease and desist letter in May 2020 to ask that she “immediately stop defaming them with malicious defamatory lies and specious fabrications.” The letter also said that Thompson took a paternity test that came back negative.
George Pimentel/Getty ImagesIn response to the cease and desist letter, Alexander told E! News, “I feel like the whole issue originally stemmed from Tristan not wanting to choose a neutral setting for the DNA testing and using a Kardashian-associated DNA Testing facility. I feel as if you really have nothing to hide then why not just go to a neutral testing site. And we both know what happened and exactly what went on between us, that’s all I can say for now.”
The athlete’s lawyer alleged in last year’s lawsuit that Alexander is “wannabe social media influencer and pornographic model/performer who is so desperate to achieve her fifteen minutes of fame that she recently fabricated a false claim that NBA star/Cleveland Cavaliers center/power forward Thompson is the father of her nearly five year old son.”
Thompson’s attorney Marty Singer said she has “persisted in publicly proclaiming” that Thompson is her child’s father and “she has maliciously accused Thompson of being a deadbeat dad, ‘neglecting’ and failing to take financial responsibility for the child since birth. Such statements are absolutely false and are defamatory per se.”
Kardashian stood by him during the paternity rumors.
“Khloe obviously gets upset when rumors are spread about Tristan being unfaithful, but the dust has settled a bit and they are still together,” an insider close to her told E! News earlier this month. “Khloe is standing by Tristan.”
Yet, this week, multiple sources confirmed to E! News that Kardashian and the Boston Celtics star have split.
E! News has reached out to his attorney for comment on the libel suit.
