Zion Williamson has lived his life in the spotlight since his early teens. Basketball fans were floored when they first saw videos of the explosive, powerful dunking machine playing high school ball in Salisbury, N.C.
Williamson was highly recruited and spent only one year in college, at Duke. At 6-foot-6 and 285 pounds with a 45-inch vertical, Zion was a specimen unlike anything we’d seen before. It was no surprise that the New Orleans Pelicans selected Zion with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. Yet life has not gone smoothly for the basketball star since he turned pro.
Williamson hasn’t been able to stay on the court, in part because of his conditioning–he has struggled to maintain a healthy body weight–and in part because of injuries (the two clearly could be related). Though he played most of the 2020-21 season, he missed the entire next season with a foot injury and only played in 29 games this year because of a hamstring injury.
When Williamson has been on the court, he’s been fantastic. He has been selected to two All-Star Games and was rewarded with a juicy five-year contract, with $193 million guaranteed, in July 2022. Yet Pelicans fans–who were expecting a generational superstar–have not been satisfied with Williamson’s performance.
Though Zion has faced plenty of scrutiny over the past decade, it’s never been as intense as what he now faces.
Last week, a social media influencer named Ahkeema announced that she and Zion are expecting a baby–a girl, due Nov. 13, 2023. This was the first public indication of their relationship.
Ahkeema posted photos and videos of their June 3 gender reveal party on Instagram, in addition to a lengthy look into the glamorous party on YouTube. This was her first video on the platform. The professionally shot and edited video opens with Zion addressing the camera: “Our baby, you gonna see this at some point. I don’t know what the future holds, but mommy and daddy love you.” Zion was wearing a shirt reading, “I’m here because I don’t want to get yelled at.”
By all accounts, the party looks like a beautiful event–celebrating the gift of new life with loved ones. Games, food, dancing. Joy.
It was all good just a week ago.
An adult film star named Moriah Mills, who also goes by the name Moriah M. and classifies herself as a hip-hop artist, was troubled–to say the least–when she saw that Zion and Ahkeema are expecting a baby.
Mills, 31, launched a tweet storm on June 10, sharing her side of the story with her 1M+ Twitter followers. Mills narrated her long relationship with Williamson, saying that him having a baby was a “deal breaker.”
According to Mills, Williamson and Ahkeema only met in February, but Mills and Williamson had been involved with each other for three years. She said he originally contacted her because she was “his fantasy girl” and offered to “take care” of her and give her gifts.
Mills stated that she signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) for Williamson, which is common practice for NBA players with romantic partners on the road, but did so with a fake name. She claimed that their relationship “started off as a sneaky link but we fell in love.”
As such, following the baby announcement, she said her heart was “broken and shattered.”
Mills posted screenshots from her interactions with Williamson, including evidence of him apparently sending wire transfers. According to Mills, Zion’s payments have provided her “livelihood” since 2021. In one Snapchat screenshot, Zion offers to pay for her rent and to send her money every month–which would come, according to Mills, following her relocation to New Orleans.
Mills also claims that Zion used a trap phone to record 100+ videos of them having sex, and that she learned he had shown these videos to other women in his life. In one screenshot, Zion asks if he can record their time together and inquires about the cost of bringing her to Portland for two days.
As Mills tells it, Zion was jealous and protective of her during their relationship. In fact, she claims that he spied on her and tried to set her up to see if she would cheat on him.
It was quite a tweet storm. A clearly very upset Mills called Zion a “sex addict” and a “sloppy fat f***” and challenged him to “be a man.” She promised she would be on the sidelines watching the Pelicans this season.
She also posted screenshots of her current exchanges with Zion, with the NBA star telling her to “delete that stuff,” referring to her social media content about him, and saying “we better than.
Mills noted that, following her online exposee, she was “being harassed” by one of Ahkeema’s family members.
There isn’t much evidence of Williamson’s relationship with Ahkeema. She posted a TikTok in February that showed her attending an event at the Smoothie King Center, as well an Instagram post in March showing that she celebrated her 29th birthday in the same place (and received some expensive jewelry).
Williamson has not addressed Moriah M.’s allegations. During a charitable fundraising event for the Summer Bridge program, Anderson Lee, Zion's stepfather, was asked about the situation. He told the public to believe “nothing of what you hear” about his stepson.
Given the length of his time in the spotlight, it’s easy to forget that he’s still quite young–only 22. We can only pray, for the sake of his new daughter, that situation won't hover over him as a dark cloud for the rest of his career.
