Tyrese Gibson has apparently found the money he owes his ex-wife Samantha Lee after being taken into custody in an Atlanta courtroom Monday morning. The R&B singer reportedly was arrested for contempt of court for failure to pay his full child support for their 5-year-old daughter Soraya Lee.
The news comes on Monday afternoon after Gibson appeared in Fulton County court in the latest round of an ongoing child support battle with Lee.
The singer seemingly entered the courtroom knowing he was facing time behind bars if he didn’t come up with a payment that turned out to be $73,000. This also included a $7,500 fee for his ex’s attorney fees.
Hip Hop Enquirer reporter Dennis Byron, who was a witness to the events in the downtown Atlanta courtroom, broke the news on X on Monday. He wrote, “Update! Tyrese has miraculously found the money he owes to his ex-wife Samantha Gibson and is arranging for it to be paid right now. He will likely be home for dinner.”
Byron reports that earlier that morning, Gibson was handcuffed and taken into custody for years of failing to make payments on time for child support.
Byron wrote, “I was inside the courtroom as presiding Judge Kevin Farmer ordered the singer to be held in willful contempt of court,” in one X post before shortly following up with another, saying, “Breaking news! Actor Tyrese Gibson has just been taken into Custody for Failure to Pay Child Support.”
Update! Tyrese has miraculously found the money he owes to his ex-wife Samantha Gibson and is arranging for it to be paid right now. He will likely be home for dinner. Photo credit @mrdennisbyron pic.twitter.com/c5gXenceic
— Dennis Byron (@MrDennisByron) September 9, 2024
The “How You Gonna Act Like That” singer was reportedly released by 5 pm PT on Monday, according to TMZ, after his team filed to appeal the ruling.
The outlet claims “the appeal means Tyrese did not have to pay the $73K before he was released. That doesn’t mean he no longer owes the back child support, it’s just delayed, for now.”
Tyrese has been very vocal about the perceived injustice he feels he’s experiencing from both Lee and the judge over their divorce case. He claims he’s been struggling to make the monthly $10,690 child support payment mainly due to taking a financial hit when the SAG-AFTRA strike took place in July of 2023.
The strike halted a lot of working opportunities for actors and creatives, thus causing many of them to struggle financially. While it ended in November 2023, court documents cite that Gibson failed to pay the full child support amount in December and January 2024. Afterward, Tyrese began paying $3,500 a month.
Superior Court Judge Kevin M. Farmer wasn’t buying any of the “Transformer” actor’s excuses, not with him sharing photos on social media of himself being on multiple vacations. Gibson and his lawyers tried to further defend his actions, claiming that the vacations weren’t costly.
Gibson and Lee have been back and forth about these child support payments for years and this isn’t the first time he’s been inconsistent with paying. He was initially ordered to pay a lump sum of $209,000 after it was discovered that he had payments that were backdated to 2020. In 2022, Gibson earned a slight win in the case when Judge Farmer reduced the lump sum payment to $169,000 after the actor payed for Lee’s car payments for two years.
But the 45-year-old has not ceased to take shots at his ex-wife for asking for what he feels is an excessive amount of child support money. He’s made many social media posts about it, talked about it in interviews, and he’s even got into a few verbal tiffs with Judge Farmer in courtroom — so much so that he’s asked to get a new judge.
After an extended period of Gibson not paying on time, Farmer has seemingly reached his limit with the “Sweet Lady” singer and decided to hold him for willful contempt of court, which means he was willfully disobedient in following the court order.
It seems Gibson was aware that this outcome was a strong possibility because the night before, he shared a now-deleted photo with handcuffs and a gavel with the words “I may be arrested in the morning…in Atlanta,” written on the photo. He also added a lengthy caption to further explain and in it he made sure to take some shots at Farmer.
After making the claim that his ex’s lawyers are good friends with the judge, Tyrese said, “We are APPEALLING ALL OF HIS RULINGS AND ALREADY HAVE TRIED TO GET THIS JUDGE THROWN OFF THE BENCH TWICE. The second time we tried to get him recused from the bench. He actually denied his own request to be thrown off the bench …imagine that???”
He also claimed Farmer tampered with the prenuptial agreement he had with Lee, accusing the judge of raising his child support payments from $3,600 per month to $10,690.
But that was just one of several posts. Hours before being taken into custody, Tyrese shared another set of photos with him, Soraya and his 16-year-old daughter, Shayla Gibson, from his first wife, Norma Mitchell.
Under the post he wrote, “The love that a father can have for his children can’t quite be explained……. Whatever the outcome is today…… I am and will forever be their FATHER……..”
Following his release, his “Social Media Management” team shared a post to promote his new album, “Beautiful Pain,” out now.
