After a brief appearance in The Last Dance as one of Michael Jordan’s opponents, former Utah Jazz star Karl Malone is facing renewed attention over a decades old case that resurfaced online.
Social media users began recirculating reports that in 1983, while Malone was a college player at Louisiana Tech, he fathered a child with a 13 year old girl. That child is Demetress Bell, who later played in the NFL. According to reports, the girl’s family filed a paternity suit in 1986, and a court ordered Malone to pay child support before the matter was settled out of court around 1988 or 1989. A direct response from Malone was not included in the reports we reviewed.
Malone’s son Karl Malone Jr., known as KJ, responded with a video on Instagram defending his father. KJ said he expected to take heat for speaking up and that he was doing it for his family. “He made a mistake,” KJ said, adding that his father remains a great dad who still looks after his brother Demetress.
Demetress has been in the public eye on his own. He played college football at Northwestern State before going on to the NFL. In 2008, he told ESPN he had no relationship with his father. By 2014 the two had begun to repair things, and a 2018 report said they talk or text nearly every day.
