Tyrese Gibson’s long running court fight with Samantha Lee Gibson has escalated again, this time with the singer and actor asking the legal system to authorize his ex wife’s arrest over a custody dispute involving their daughter, Soraya.
Tyrese filed an application seeking an arrest warrant against Samantha, accusing her of interfering with his custody rights after relocating Soraya from Georgia. Court documents reviewed by TMZ say Tyrese claims Samantha removed their daughter from the state and failed to properly facilitate his visitation. He characterized her actions as “premeditated” and alleged that the move violated a parenting plan they had reached shortly before the relocation.
Samantha is disputing that version of events. Per TMZ, she opposed the warrant request and maintained that she has primary custody of Soraya. She also accused Tyrese of presenting inaccurate information about their custody history and argued that the Oregon move was never hidden from him. The dispute is the latest Tyrese Gibson custody battle to grow out of a separation that has already produced years of litigation over parenting time and money.
There may already be another development. On September 30, Fulton County Magistrate Judge Adam Petty approved Tyrese’s request following a hearing. The outlet reported that Samantha would be permitted to surrender and receive a signature bond. Baller Alert has not independently reviewed the reported order, and the approval of an arrest warrant would not amount to a finding of guilt or resolve the underlying custody case.
The fight over Oregon actually began more than a year earlier. According to Us Weekly, Samantha emailed Tyrese in August 2025 and informed him that she wanted to move west with Soraya. She said she had spent significant time praying and considering the decision and had already researched schools. Samantha also argued that Oregon’s proximity to Tyrese’s Los Angeles residence could make longer visits with Soraya easier.
Tyrese made his opposition unmistakable. In a September message included with his custody filing, he wrote, “No, Samantha. No way. No how. I do not agree,” while arguing that previous discussions over Soraya’s schooling concerned Atlanta and nearby communities, not permission to relocate across the country. He also pointed to Soraya’s relationship with her older half-sister, Shayla, who was preparing to attend college in Atlanta.
Tyrese later told Samantha, “If God is leading you to Portland, then He is leading you — not Soraya,” insisting their daughter should remain in Atlanta. According to Us Weekly, he filed a custody modification case in October 2025 and sought primary custody after the move. Samantha responded the following month and argued that neither the original parenting plan nor the July 2025 court order required Tyrese’s consent before she relocated.
Samantha also pushed back on Tyrese’s portrayal of his parenting time. In court papers reported by Us Weekly, she alleged that he had not exercised all of the time available to him when Soraya still lived in Georgia and frequently relied on a nanny during his periods with their daughter. Those assertions remain Samantha’s allegations and are part of the broader custody dispute rather than findings established by the court.
The Tyrese Gibson custody fight did not begin with Oregon. The former couple’s legal history stretches back to September 2020, when Samantha filed for divorce after the pair married in February 2017 and welcomed Soraya in 2018. A later Georgia Court of Appeals decision shows that the couple had a prenuptial agreement covering several financial issues, including property, debts, and limitations on spousal support. Custody and child support were specifically outside the agreement.
Their divorce case eventually turned heavily toward support and legal expenses. According to the appellate ruling, the trial court found that Tyrese had reported gross monthly income of roughly $275,000 during the proceedings. The court ordered him to pay $10,690 per month in support for Soraya and another $163,093 as a lump sum covering support for the period between Samantha’s divorce filing and the trial. The court denied Samantha’s request for spousal support.
Attorney fees became another major battleground. The Georgia Court of Appeals said an arbitrator determined that Tyrese was responsible for Samantha’s reasonable legal fees and expenses under their prenuptial agreement. The trial court ultimately ordered him to pay $399,152 to her attorneys. Tyrese challenged both the child support award and attorney fee rulings on appeal, but the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court in November 2024.
The support dispute had already resulted in contempt proceedings by then. A 2023 Fulton County Superior Court order states that Tyrese was required to pay $10,690 monthly but had instead paid $3,500 per month during several months in 2023. The judge found him in willful contempt and calculated $28,760 in arrears, plus $396.07 in interest, ordering him to pay $29,156.07 to purge the contempt.
The consequences grew more serious in September 2024. A separate Fulton County court order found Tyrese in willful contempt again for failing to make the required child support payments and ordered him taken into custody until he paid a $73,525.73 purge amount or the court issued another order. He was released shortly afterward when his attorney filed an appeal. Tyrese later stressed publicly that he considered himself detained rather than arrested and maintained that he had continued financially supporting his children despite his disagreement with the court-ordered amount.
His attempt to undo the larger financial rulings also eventually ran out of appellate road. After the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld the support and attorney fee decisions, the Supreme Court of Georgia denied Tyrese’s petition for further review in May 2025.
By July 2025, however, the parties had reached a revised support arrangement. According to Us Weekly, Tyrese’s monthly child support obligation was reduced to $5,500 after financial information in the new order listed approximately $150,000 in total monthly income when salary and distributions were combined. That agreement came shortly before the dispute over Samantha relocating Soraya to Oregon intensified.
The reduced monthly payment did not end their financial fight. In July 2025, TMZ reported that Samantha filed what the outlet described as her fourth motion seeking enforcement of the attorney fee award. Her attorneys alleged the unpaid balance had grown to $492,651.99 with interest and asked the court to hold Tyrese in criminal contempt, with a request for as many as 20 days in jail. The filing represented Samantha’s position on what remained unpaid, and the original court-ordered attorney fee award was approximately $399,000.
That history makes the latest Tyrese Gibson custody dispute especially tangled. Both sides have previously asked courts to use contempt powers against the other, both have accused the other of failing to honor parenting obligations, and the litigation has moved from support calculations and attorney bills into a fight over where their daughter can live and how Tyrese’s parenting time should work across state lines.
What remains unresolved is the question at the heart of the case: whether Samantha’s move violated an enforceable custody requirement or whether her primary custody status and the language of the parenting orders allowed her to relocate without Tyrese’s approval.
