Rumor: Eddie Murphy to request joint custody?

In Touch is reporting that actor Eddie Murphy may seek joint custody of ex-Spice Girl Melanie Brown’s new daughter if he is proven to be the father. An insider says,

If it’s his, he won’t abandon the child.

Melanie gave birth to her baby girl, who has yet to be named, on April 3.  She says the baby is definitely Eddie’s child and was conceived during the couple’s six month relationship in 2006.  Shortly after announcing her pregnancy, Eddiestated on a television program that the baby could be anyone’s and he wasn’t absolutely positive of his paternity.Melanie has reportedly already put the comedian’s name on her daughter’s birth certificate and has also obtained a high priced lawyer for the paternity battle, which may just be heating up.

If proven to be the actor’s child,  the infant will join his other five children with his ex-wife Nicole Mitchell Murphy, including daughters, Bria, 17, Shayna Audra, 12, Zola Ivy, 7, and Bella Zahra, 5, and son Miles, 14.

Source: In Touch, April. 23, pg. 46

Comments

I thought he had one or two other children (boys) with one or two women before he had five children with Nicole. So if Mel B.’s baby is also his, he has seven or eight children.

- Marilyn on April 18th, 2007

He does have two other children before he had five with his ex-wife. I wonder if/when she’ll release the name of the new baby girl.

- latisha on April 18th, 2007

It always bugs me when the supposed fathers deny, deny, deny and say there’s no way the baby could be theirs, but when they find out it’s theirs, they’re like, oh, I’m not abandoning my baby. I’m sorry, but that just upsets me. So, he’s going to deny the kid until he knows whether or not it’s his…then he wants partial custody. Something doesn’t sit right.

- Ashley on April 18th, 2007

It bugs me too when dads do that. I think if there is doubt in their mind they can try to deal with it and the mother as respectfully as possible.

If the baby is not theirs in the end they can sever ties or whatever and each go their own ways, but if the child is theirs they won’t feel (or look) like the jerk who was mean to their child’s mother while she carried the baby.

- Virginia on April 19th, 2007

Ashley, Eddie never denied he was the father of this baby. He simply said, “I don’t know whose child that is until it comes out and has a blood test.” There is a difference.

- Lauren on April 19th, 2007

The only thing that bugs me is that Eddie seemed a little too quick to distance himself from the pregnancy.
On the other hand, I have seen the pain caused when a man automatically believes a woman (trying to the right thing) and years later it’s revealed that the child isn’t his.
Sometimes it’s too late to sever ties easily leading to distress on all the parties.
Both of them should attempt to settle the paternity very quickly rather than leap to any assumptions.

- sweetdiva on April 19th, 2007

Eddie is slime in my mind. He already has two other children who he doesn’t call his (but pays for). As soon as Mel became pregnant he started dating someone else. He didn’t even have the nerve to formally break up with her. She was over in England (thinking they were still together) when she heard about his “new girlfriend” in the news!!!

- Lorus on April 19th, 2007

I’m sorry, but I just find him disgusting. He should’ve kept his opinions to himself when she was pregnant. No woman wants to hear some guy say “it could be anybody’s” to the world and then parade around with a new, hot girlfriend. He should have kept his mouth shut IMO and privately gotten a paternity test.

- PSB on April 20th, 2007