Reality star Tyler Francis is speaking out about his Love Is Blind sperm donor drama that’s made him the ongoing subject of criticism. In a new interview that he calls his “one and only,” the openly absentee father of three said he was tired of being a “tip-toe dad” to the kids as their mother kept bringing him in and out of their lives. Not only that, but his wife, Ashley Adionser, is blasting fellow Christians who are urging her to leave her husband.
Source: Terrence Patrick / Netflix
On Wednesday, Tyler spoke on the “sperm donor” revelation he made in episode 9 of the show, which nearly threatened to end his engagement to Ashley on Love Is Blind’s D.C. season.
While a guest on the Dear Future Wifey podcast, Tyler went into great detail with host Laterras R. Whitfield about initially helping “a friend and her wife start a family” by donating sperm and “voluntarily” stepping in to assist with the children when the wife left—only to be pushed out when the couple reconciled.
Tyler explained that he and his friend, Bri Thomas, the mother of his children, had an exceptionally close bond.
“We hung out almost every other day. She was just one of the homies—super cool,” he said. When Bri and her wife decided to have a child together, they encountered challenges with sperm donor banks, which charged significant fees for specific attributes like race, height, and education.
“They couldn’t afford it,” said Tyler on Dear Future Wifey. “So I was like, look, I’ll help y’all out.”
Using an at-home insemination kit, Francis donated his sperm, enabling the couple to start their family.
Tyler told Dear Future Wifey that Bri was adamant that she wanted the kids to be raised in a two-parent household with two moms, so he respected her wishes until she brought him back into their lives after a breakup with her wife.
That’s when Tyler said he stepped into the father figure role for the kids for “about six months” by doing tasks like picking them up from daycare, which was easy because he and Bri lived in the same building. Still, he told Dear Future Wifey that he still didn’t feel connected to the kids, two twin girls, and a boy, saying at one point he felt like a “glorified babysitter.”
“This is very controversial, people are going to hate to hear it, [but] I still didn’t have that connection,” said Tyler. “In my heart, I was helping someone, so I had already detached from them, and I wasn’t around for all these steps.”
At another point in the show, Tyler emphasized that feeling of disconnect, telling Dear Future Wifey that he wants “that family” to leave him alone.
“I want them to have their family and leave me alone, that’s honestly what I want,” said Tyler. “I wouldn’t wanna be attached to that family, not the kids per say, because again, innocent kids, beautiful kids–but they come with everyone else.”
According to Tyler, who brought receipts on his phone to share about the situation, the children’s mother, Bri Thomas, and her mother are also after his money for child support.
“I was just a come-up, and you were just waiting to cash out,” alleged Tyler before calling the mother of his kids a clout chaser. “It’s a money thing, if you’re okay with your family and what you have going on you would be like, Tyler walked away—I don’t wanna have anything to do with it.”
However, he did not explicitly state whether or not the twins with Bri were conceived naturally, as has been alleged online.
Amid the release of the interview, Tyler’s wife, Ashley, has spoken out, blasting marriage critics who encourage her to leave her spouse.
Hit the flip for that.