Sharing her experience on X, a platform owned by Elon Musk, Grimes revealed how the legal fight for their three children impacted her mental health, career, and identity as a mother.
Canadian musician Grimes, known offstage as Claire Elise Boucher, opened up about the emotional and financial toll of her year-long custody battle with tech mogul Elon Musk.
Sharing her experience in a series of posts on X, a platform owned by Musk, Grimes revealed how the legal fight for their three children impacted her mental health, career, and identity as a mother.
The custody dispute involved their children – X Æ A-XII (“baby X”), aged four, and two-year-olds Exa Dark Sideræl and Tau Techno Mechanicus.
Grimes claimed the battle left her emotionally drained and financially crippled, saying she was “going bankrupt”.
The legal proceedings were reportedly settled in December 2023, though the terms remain sealed. Despite the resolution, Grimes admitted the experience shattered her creative flow.
“The thought of losing my children while going bankrupt was not conducive to creative thoughts,” she said, adding, “I just slept and cried every minute I wasn’t explicitly fighting for my kids during that year.”
Her statement came when asked why she hadn’t launched any of her projects in a while.
Take a look at the post here:
However, in another post, she also reflected on how motherhood transformed her and called it a profound, life-altering journey: “Babies are ten thousand philosophy classes of (expletive) you can only learn from that experience.”
“Spent a year locked in battle in a state with terrible mothers’ rights, having my Instagram posts and modelling used as reasons I shouldn’t have my kids,” Grimes said in the post. She also revealed that she was kept apart from one of her children for five months during the ordeal.
Grimes didn’t hold back when discussing Musk’s personal and political evolution as she described him as “unrecognisable” compared to the man she once loved.
Grime concluded her post as she admitted the struggle had been a defining chapter of her life: “I fought and detached from the love of my life as he became unrecognisable to me, with a fraction of his resources.”
Take a look at her post here:
Musk, a father of 12, has long been vocal about his desire for a large family and concerns over declining global birth rates. He shares six children with his first wife, Justine Wilson, including twins and triplets born through IVF, alongside three children with Grimes and two with Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis
