Muhammad Ali has long been known as "The Greatest". As such,
many women were drawn to him throughout his life — and he subsequently sired
nine children. Where are they now? Are they successful? Do they have good
memories of their legendary father? Here's the truth about Muhammad Ali's children.
Born in 1968, Maryum "May May" is Muhammad Ali's first child,
from his marriage to Khalilah Ali. In 2003, she wrote a children's book about her father,
"I Shook Up the World: The Incredible Life of Muhammad Ali."
As Ali explained to Jet, she saw the positive response young children had to the documentary
"When We Were Kings," which focuses on the iconic "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match. She said:
"I thought to myself, 'What a good idea it would be to illustrate my
father's funny one-liners and poems in a children's book.'"
According to Maryum, the core message of the book is one of "believing in yourself"
and "standing up for your beliefs."
Interestingly, her advocacy for young people doesn't stop with books. In 2016,
she appeared on the reality series "60 Days In," in which she went undercover in an
Indiana jail in an effort to better understand America's prison system.
"Why did you want to go into this program?"
"I'm a social worker, and I've tried to prevent
young people from joining gangs and going to jail."
Two years after Maryum was born, Muhammad and Khalilah Ali welcomed twin daughters Rasheda
and Jamillah. A Parkinson's disease advocate, Rasheda has spoken about
how her father's diagnosis shaped her campaign work. As she told The Guardian,
Parkinson's proliferated Muhammad Ali's altruistic nature. She explained:
"He didn't stop giving to people. He didn't stop sharing. It was a
little difficult at the end when it was hard to walk and talk,
but he still continued to do the things that he thinks God put him on this earth for:
to give to others. In my honest opinion, I think that Parkinson's disease saved his life."
In addition to her work with Parkinson's organizations, Rasheda Ali has her own
budding boxing champ to contend with. Rasheda and her restaurateur husband,
Robert Walsh, are the parents of sons Biaggio Ali Walsh and middleweight boxer Nico Walsh.
When Nico told his mom that his dream was to become a boxer,
she was hesitant to say the least. However, she ultimately relented and offered some
sweet words of encouragement. She said upon Nico's pro debut:
"Daddy will be there, too. In spirit."
Jamillah Ali Joyce has devoted her life to philanthropic pursuits,
the same as her father. Muhammad once said:
"I've always wanted to be more than just a boxer. More than just the three-time
heavyweight champion. I wanted to use my fame, and this face that everyone knows so well,
to help uplift and inspire people around the world."
Subsequently, Joyce has taken her father's words of wisdom to heart. According to the Ali Center,
she works with the homeless and underprivileged communities of Chicago. Speaking with CNN about
the impact her own father's humanitarian efforts had on the world, she said:
"He made a big difference to lives, too. To some people, he completely changed their
lives. And that means a lot to us because that's what he would want to stand for;
he would want to make a difference and stand for what you believe in."
Asked about the biggest lesson she learned from her father,
Joyce said that she was inspired by his ability to fight for the rights of the marginalized
even when his own body was faltering. She said:
"Never give up. He has persevered his whole entire life, and he's fought for what he believed in,
even with Parkinson's, and he didn't give up. And he fought all the way to the end."
The boxer's fourth child with Khalilah Ali was his first son, Muhammad Ali Jr.,
who was born in 1972. Alas, the boxer's only biological son and
namesake reportedly grew apart from his father. According to the New York Post,
Ali Jr. was living a life of destitution in 2014. He confessed to the publication:
"I wished before my dad got really sick, I could have had that father-son relationship,
but that's impossible now. I wish I could have made up for lost time. But
it doesn't break my heart anymore. It's been broken so many times."
When his father died, Ali Jr. reportedly claimed he was "penniless" and had received close to
nothing from the boxing legend's multimillion dollar estate. He alleged that his dad's widow,
Lonnie, controlled the estate and was attempting to prevent him from inheriting
his late father's fortune. An insider who is familiar with the situation said:
"The last thing he needs to do is cause more tension with Lonnie,
who he's never got on with, he's scared he'll be cut from the inheritance entirely [...] He
sometimes misses out on a meal as he's not got enough to live on."
Ali and all his siblings ultimately each received $6
million from his father's $80 million fortune.
Muhammad Ali had an extramarital affair with Patricia Harvell, and they had a daughter named
Miya in 1972. She is fairly private, but Miya did appear on Family Feud with her siblings in 2016.
"We asked one hundred women, 'How long does it take you to look like a natural beauty?'"
"Thirty minutes"
Miya didn't get to spend as much time with her father as her siblings did. As her sister, Hana,
relayed to ESPN, Miya's father surprised her when she really needed him at 8 years old.
Kids at school teased Miya, claiming that she wasn't Muhammad Ali's daughter. After tearfully
calling her father about the situation, Muhammad came to her aid. She recounted the experience:
"He flew into town and walked me up and down the street so everyone could see us
together. He took me to school the next morning, and they called an assembly.
When all the students were in the auditorium, he had me point out the kids who had been teasing me.
One at a time they walked up to the stage. He shook their hands and told
each of them that he was my daddy. That meant more to me than words can explain."
While she did get to speak on the phone with her father and enjoy occasional visits,
Miya's time with Ali was sparse. However, when raising awareness about dyslexia,
Miya told WWLTV that she was happily reunited with the boxing champ after relocating to Michigan;
she lived with him while she started university.
Two years after Miya's birth, Muhammad Ali began a relationship with Aaisha Fletcher, who was just 16
at the time. They had a daughter in 1974, Khaliah, who is a passionate campaigner for social justice.
According to HollywoodLife, she is on the board of Philadelphia's Juvenile Law Center.
Along with her son, Jacob, she has been involved in the Black Lives Matter
protests. Regarding her involvement in social justice demonstrations,
Khaliah reflected on the generational significance of the movement, telling ABC News:
"As I sit here next to my son, I reflect on the fact that my grandmother sat next to my father,
and so on. These issues are systemic."
Jacob went on to add:
"I think it's really important. You know, that we salute, stand with the protesters,
the people who are using their voice to make sure that this country becomes what it must become."
Khaliah has emphasized the struggles her own father faced when it came to racial injustice.
For instance, despite being a world champion, Muhammad Ali was banned
from entering many public spaces due to segregation laws. She said:
"I think what's important about that was the empowerment and the focus and
the drive that came from that moment, how he was able to take something that
technically could have been a negative. And he could have just stopped right there,
and decided to make it not only about himself, but about others, and eventually the world."
In 1977, Muhammad Ali married his second wife, Veronica, and they had a daughter named Hana. Hana
has written multiple books about the life of her father. While Muhammad Ali is often lionized for
both his boxing prowess and commitment to civil rights, he was by no means a flawless human being.
No one is more aware of this than Hana, who has had to reconcile her hero worship
of her father with the harsh reality of his infidelity. She explained to Publishers Weekly:
"I know my dad was not perfect. But I respect and love how we handled his faults. I unfairly blamed
my mother for the breakup of their marriage. I was a daddy's girl. He could do no wrong in my eyes."
However, after finding letters that Ali wrote to a lover,
Hana's idolization of her dad turned from denial to sadness. She admitted:
"Those feelings intensified when I discovered my dad's love letters to her.
How could she have not known about them? But after a while,
I eventually saw her relationship with my father through her eyes."
As for her own private life, Hana is married to mixed martial artist Kevin Casey.
In addition to her career as a writer, Hana is a support worker for autistic children.
Laila Ali is the boxer's second child with Veronica.
Taking after her father's athletic aptitude, Ali is a retired professional boxer.
"Does she fight like you?"
"I back it up, huh, too, daddy?"
"She's bad."
"She's bad, she's bad."
From the age of 18, Ali knew she wanted to become a professional
boxer after watching Tyson v. Bruno. She recounted to Fatherly:
"All of a sudden, I saw two women enter the ring. They weren't ring girls. They
were fighters. For the first 18 years of my life, I never even thought boxing
a possibility for me. After watching that fight, I knew it was something I had to do."
However, Ali had to contend with her famous father decrying her newfound profession.
She recalled her father telling her that boxing isn't a women's sport and that she'd just get
hurt. But she proved him wrong, and a year later, was hailed world champion.
It seems that Ali has more in common with her dad than she would like to admit. Though she
had to fight — quite literally — against sexist opposition to her career choice, Ali has made
it clear that she doesn't want her own kids to box. She told ESPN before having children:
"I'm not encouraging anybody else's kids.
So why would I encourage my own? No. I'm crazy, but I hope my kids are sane."
After Muhammad Ali married his fourth and final wife, Lonnie Williams, in 1986,
they adopted a baby boy named Asaad. According to Courier Journal,
Asaad had been given up by his mom, and Ali essentially saved him from
a childhood that could very well have been spent in the foster care system.
As he grew up, Asaad eschewed the boxing ring for the baseball field. Following a brief
amateur career, Asaad went on to coach baseball at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls.
Unlike the other Ali siblings, Asaad got to spend his entire upbringing
with his father — since Muhammad was in his mid 40s by the time Asaad came along
and obviously done with his boxing career. Asaad told Courier Journal:
"I've lived with him my whole life; it's kind of different (for me). As the years go by,
it's been a little harder for him. But you can tell he still has that twinkle
in his eye sometimes when he talks to me, and he just loves being around us kids."
When his dad was receiving palliative care, Asaad visited him in the hospital. In an interview with
Today, he was asked if he wanted to share what was said between them before he passed.
He said that it was something personal that would ultimately remain private, but also said:
"What I can say about that room is that it was really
powerful, emotional, spiritual moment, you know, that we all shared with him."
The incredible life that the boxer had bestowed upon that
once forsaken baby was not lost on Asaad. He said of his late father:
"I'm forever grateful for everything you ever gave me."
Marrying the daughter of arguably the greatest boxer who ever lived doubtlessly
brings innumerable challenges. Just ask Jamillah Ali Joyce,
who has said that her father was somewhat hesitant when her then-fiance — Mike Joyce,
a white man — asked for her hand in marriage. However, when seeing the love that Mike had
for his daughter, Ali gave the union his blessing. She recalled to DNAInfo:
"My dad is all about love and all about peace and that's what my dad stands for.
Love comes in all races, all colors [...] All that
have love and peace in their heart were all equal in my dad's eyes."
Khaliah faced something similar when marrying a Jewish man. A
devoted Muslim throughout his life, Muhammad Ali accepted Khaliah's son,
Jacob, as Jewish. Regarding her son's bar mitzvah, Khaliah told NBC News:
"My dad, he so badly wanted to be there to support Jacob. And it was beautiful, every religion was
represented. And my dad wanted to show his love, his compassion, and his respect for Judaism. He
gladly grabbed the Torah [...] and kissed it, as grandparents do. It was really beautiful to see."
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