Soulja Boy is now questioning the paternity of a child he publicly celebrated and claimed as his son. The situation has taken a turn sharp enough to raise eyebrows well beyond the usual celebrity gossip circuit.
Court documents filed by the rapper, born DeAndre Cortez Way, request a DNA test for three-year-old KeAndre Cortez Way, who was born in September 2022.
At the time of the birth, Soulja Boy showed no such hesitation. He shared photos of the newborn with the caption “Lil Soulja, daddy love u,” and he and the child’s mother, Jackilyn Martinez, had held a gender reveal event together before the birth.
The legal drama began in earnest when Martinez filed for custody and child support in October 2025, alleging she had been covering the majority of KeAndre’s expenses on her own and only received financial contributions from Soulja Boy after repeatedly asking him for help.
His response, rather than engaging with the support dispute directly, was to request genetic testing to determine whether he is the father at all. The filing indicates he would cover pregnancy costs and legal fees if the test confirms paternity.
What has drawn particular attention is an alleged email from Soulja Boy to Martinez’s legal team that surfaced alongside the filing. In it, he reportedly wrote: “Stop emailing me, you dumb b*tch.
There will be no litigation or settlement idk who the f*** u think u talking to.” The message, if authentic, is the kind of thing that tends to significantly complicate a man’s standing in a family court proceeding.
The timing of the paternity request also invites scrutiny given the history. This is not the first time Soulja Boy has been through this process.
A paternity case in 2014 ended with test results showing zero probability that he was the father of a child he had been linked to at the time.
Whether that history informed his decision to request testing for KeAndre now, or whether this is a legal strategy deployed in response to the child support filing, is a question the court proceedings will eventually answer.
For now, a three-year-old boy carries his name, his face was celebrated on the internet as “Lil Soulja,” and the man who posted those photos is in court asking whether any of it was biologically accurate. Whatever the DNA results eventually show, the situation as it stands is not a flattering one.
