Patriots owner Robert Kraft is not the father of his on-again, off-again girlfriend’s baby, who was born in the fall of 2017, a spokesperson for the team said early Thursday morning.
Speculation that the 76-year-old team owner could be the father began after a New York Post story revealed on Wednesday that Ricki Noel Lander gave birth to a baby at some point in 2017. The tabloid said multiple sources had confirmed the birth.
“Last fall, Ricki Noel Lander became the proud mother of a beautiful, healthy baby,” the Patriots spokesperson wrote in an email early Thursday. “While Robert Kraft is not the biological father, he is thrilled with Ricki’s blessing of having a healthy child. With respect to her family’s privacy, we will not be commenting any further.”
Lander had been on-again, off-again with Kraft since 2012.
Kraft, whose wife Myra died in 2011, has four sons, Jonathan, Daniel, Joshua, and David, all of whom are older than Lander, a 38-year-old model/actress.
According to the Post, Kraft is “taking full care of Ricki and the baby,” and has bought her a house in Los Angeles.
Kraft and Lander began dating less than a year after Myra Kraft’s death, often sitting together at Celtics games. Lander, whose slender resume includes small parts in “Ugly Betty” and “True Blood,” moved to Los Angeles as a teenager to train with the Los Angeles Classical Ballet and also studied at Mike Nichols’s New Actors Workshop in New York, according to her page on IMDB.com.
Early on in their relationship, a bizarre video surfaced of Kraft rehearsing a scene with Lander, who was wearing an animal-print bikini. The video quickly went viral.
The pair spent a lot of time together over the next few years, attending various awards shows, appearing arm-in-arm at Elton John’s Oscars party, and strolling around Allen & Company’s annual media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. But by late 2015, the courtship cooled, and there was speculation that the pair had taken a break to sort out what the future might hold. Normally active on social media, posting glamorous selfies, Lander went completely dark on Instagram between July 2016 and August 2017.
Kraft had occasionally squired other young women to events, including to Celtics games this season. But Lander suddenly reappeared in the past month, joining Kraft at the recent Grammy Awards and at last weekend’s NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles, where she and the billionaire team owner were all smiles as they were photographed together.