Karl Malone fathered multiple children by Bonita Ford  as well as a single child through a woman named Gloria Bell.In 1998, the tabloid newspaper The Globe reported that Malone had been a defendant in paternity lawsuits, filed shortly after Malone began his professional basketball career in the late 1980s, which alleged that he was the father of three children by two women from his hometown of Summerfield, Louisiana: Demetrius Bell and twins Daryl and Cheryl Ford. Malone had been 17 when the Ford twins were born to Bonita Ford, who was approximately the same age.

However, Malone was 20 years old when Gloria Bell, at age 13, conceived Demetrius. The Salt Lake Tribune conducted a follow-up investigation and reported that in the aftermath of the Globe story, Malone had met with the Ford twins for the first time since visiting them in the hospital after they were born. Malone did not meet with Bell at that time, and Malone’s attorney insisted that Malone had settled the lawsuits prior to any conclusive establishment of paternity, and thus still did not know whether he was truly the father of any of the children.