Muhammad Ali, widely celebrated as “The Greatest” both in and out of the ring, was known for a personal life as complicated as his boxing career was storied. Over the course of his life, Ali fathered nine children with multiple women, including relationships that took place outside of his marriages. One of the most notable was his relationship with Aaisha Fletcher.
In 1974, when Muhammad Ali was 32 years old, he began a relationship with Fletcher, who was just 16 at the time. The pair went on to have a daughter together, Khaliah, born in 1974. This was one of several relationships Ali had outside of his marriages during that period of his life, which also included his affair with Patricia Harvell, with whom he had a daughter named Miya in 1972.
Khaliah Ali has grown into an outspoken advocate for social justice, following in the footsteps of her father’s own activism. She sits on the board of Philadelphia’s Juvenile Law Center. Alongside her son, Jacob, she has participated in Black Lives Matter protests, drawing a direct line between her father’s fight against racial injustice and the activism happening today.
Reflecting on the generational nature of the support for civil rights, Khaliah told 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.”
Her son Jacob echoed the sentiment, adding, “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 also spoken about the discrimination her father endured despite his status as a world champion. Muhammad Ali was barred from entering many public spaces due to segregation laws during his career.
She explained, “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.”
Despite the circumstances of their beginnings, many of Ali’s children, including Khaliah, have carried forward his commitment to working for others, even as they reckon with the more difficult chapters of his personal history.
