We recently reported that Matt Barnes and his fiancée, model Anansa Sims, would be starring in a reality TV show on WE tv in the near future. Well, Barnes’ ex-wife Gloria Govan is worried about how she could be portrayed on the show and the level of involvement of their sons in the program. Govan, 38, expressed her concerns in a recent motion she filed. The twin mom is taking Barnes to court over unpaid child support and saying he went against an agreement they had about their boys, Carter and Isaiah, being on TV.
According to documents obtained by Radar Online, the former couple, who divorced in 2015, initially agreed on a child support amount of $20k per month but knocked it down to $9,983 per month after the former NBA star left the league. However, Barnes allegedly hasn’t upheld his side of the deal, so Govan claims he owes her $267,000 and is also demanding he cover her legal fees.
She claims he “is retired from the NBA, has extensive savings, a luxurious lifestyle and likely earns well over $1.5 million per year even after retirement. He is likely to have extensive savings and investment accounts.” Barnes has a hit podcast, All the Smoke, along with a network of other programming that was most recently a part of Showtime Sports. The podcast, with fellow retired NBA star Stephen Jackson, has more than 850,000 subscribers on YouTube alone.
She continued, “I have tried to settle this matter with [Barnes]. His counteroffer made it clear he is not living in reality. Furthermore, he has refused to pay the court-ordered support, even though we have already had litigation and he is well aware that there is no agreement to reduce support.”
Govan claims Barnes reduced the child support amount to $4,000 monthly in 2020 without her consent. His reasons were that he was “having a tough time with his girlfriend and her kids living with him, along with a new child coming, but there is no agreement to reduce support.”
In Govan’s motion she expressed concerns about Barnes’ anger, saying, “Although Matt has not of recent times been as abusive towards me as he has in the past, I do believe that by filing this [motion], he will revert back to the bully he has so often been, and he will threaten or try to extort me as he has in the past.”
“I am especially concerned that if Matt gets angry, that some of this will be displayed on the reality show The Barnes Bunch that he has been filming for a season, and which is filming again now,” she added. “I had originally only agreed to our boys being included only on a limited basis, but Matt went beyond our agreement.”
The former Basketball Wives star continued, “I therefore wish to have a written order that requires our agreement to have the boys involved in a reality show, whether Matt’s or one that I am potentially going to be filming.”
Barnes has officially been with his soon-to-be-wife since 2017 and got engaged in 2022. Together, he and Sims share six kids – his twin boys and her three children from her first marriage. The sixth and youngest of the bunch is the son Barnes and Sims have together. Govan went on to marry Derek Fisher in 2021. He has four children of his own from his first marriage.