The internet is, as we all know by now, a cesspool of lies, untruths, falsehoods, and egregious fabrications. You can’t scroll through Twitter (sorry, X), swipe through TikTok, or descend into the depths of Instagram without encountering fake Karens, scammy impersonators, whatever bullshit the guy who owns the place is spewing, or — to get really specific — claims that Pitbull has 21 children with 18 different women.
That last one went weirdly viral on TikTok recently, sourced back to a video shared in mid-August by the account Pat Williams Comedy. The clip dubbed the “Celebrity Baby Mama Hall of Fame” (part two), found Williams riffing about some of pop culture’s most prolific procreators. And while some of the folks on his list have indeed brought numerous children into this world (Clint Eastwood, former NBA star Shawn Kemp, notorious breeder Elon Musk), the username Pat Williams Comedy (emphasis added) and accompanying hashtag #satire probably should’ve tipped viewers off to the likelihood that this video wasn’t rigorously fact-checked.
Nevertheless, that didn’t stop people from running with Williams’ claim that Pitbull, Mr. Worldwide himself, is a “Hawaiian island volcano — he’s got 21 kids with 18 different women in 13 different countries. He sees them all twice a year, and he’s never missed a child support payment.”
Williams’ original video racked up over four million views, and it was apparently still making the rounds on FYPs everywhere when another user picked up the Pitbull faux-fact a few days ago and shared it with equal parts credulity and incredulity. With that video garnering over two million views, we here at Rolling Stone felt it was our duty — nay, our destiny (?) — to get the facts straight.
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When asked to comment on the 21 kids claim, a rep for Pitbull actually responded to Rolling Stone’s request, saying, “That is completely inaccurate and obviously comedic humor.”
Also, obviously, we didn’t exactly need an on-the-record statement to confirm what a simple Google search will tell you: Pitbull does not have 21 children with 18 women in 13 different countries. Though the rep did not specify exactly how many kids Pitbull does have, by most accounts, he has six (which, to be fair, isn’t a Musk-sized yield, but still pretty productive).
