Tragic Details About Elon Musk's Former Girlfriend Grimes

Elon Musk and Grimes' relationship was full of strange details that everyone ignored. The Tesla founder and the Canadian singer confirmed their romance in style by walking the 2018 Met Gala red carpet together. However, they sparked split rumors only a couple of months after their debut since Business Insider pointed out that they weren't following each other on X and Instagram, in August of that year. They appeared to have worked out their supposed differences since they were spotted enjoying autumnal festivities with Elon's children in October. Then, in 2020, Elon and Grimes welcomed their first child, X Æ A-12 Musk. 

However, in a September 2021 chat with Page Six, the SpaceX founder asserted that he had "semi-separated" from the "Oblivion" singer because his work schedule kept him in Texas while she was based out of Los Angeles. Elon also shared that they still lived under the same roof after their separation. Once again, their split wasn't built to last because they went on to welcome their second child, daughter Exa Dark Sideræl, and their third kid, son Techno Mechanicus, in the following years. 

Speaking to Vanity Fair in March 2022, Grimes admitted that it was difficult to put a label on their relationship. After referring to him as her "boyfriend," she stated, "We live in separate houses. We're best friends. We see each other all the time... We just have our own thing going on, and I don't expect other people to understand it." Although Elon and Grimes apparently parted ways by 2024, they continued to get into public clashes over co-parenting.

According to court documents obtained by Business Insider, Elon Musk sued Grimes in September 2023 from a Texas court to "establish the parent-child relationship" with his kids. Shortly afterward, the "Genesis" singer sued Musk and requested physical and joint legal custody of their kids. Additionally, Grimes sought to have her billionaire ex shell out her legal expenses. Although the singer-songwriter understandably remained tight-lipped through the proceedings, her mother, Sandy Garossino, shared a since-deleted X post to claim that Musk was preventing their children from traveling to see their great-grandmother before she passed away in palliative care. 

In November 2024, Business Insider reported that the exes had reached an agreement in their custody spat, the details of which remained unclear. Around the same time, an X user asked Grimes why she wasn't making music. In response, she wrote that she was preoccupied with "the threat of losing [her] kids while going bankrupt fighting for them." She added, "I just slept and cried every minute I wasn't explicitly fighting for my kids during that year." 

Later, the Canadian also hinted that Musk's legal team had used her social media posts and modeling to bring her parenting abilities into question. Grimes admitted that she also had a tough time "fighting and detaching from the love of my life as he becomes unrecognizable to me, with a fraction of his resources (or iq/ strategy experience)." Another tragic detail of Musk and Grimes' custody battle was that she couldn't even see her kids for five months as she fought for them in court.

In May 2021, Grimes made a cameo in a "Saturday Night Live" episode hosted by Elon Musk. A few days later, the Canadian singer shared an Instagram photo of herself with musical guest Miley Cyrus. In the caption, Grimes revealed that she had to be hospitalized after her appearance on the beloved show because she had a panic attack. Speaking at a Fox News "Alter Ego" virtual panel in September 2021, Grimes admitted that although she had a tremendous passion for her craft, she wasn't too keen on being in the spotlight because of her stage fright. 

After admitting that being a celebrity had "bad mental health effects," she elaborated on how her critics may have fueled the issues, saying, "When my career first started, everyone was sh**** on my appearance because I didn't wear makeup." She added: "And then I just slowly started feeling this pressure to be physically beautiful or whatever." Likewise, in a November 2021 TikTok, the Canadian singer-songwriter admitted that she had developed PTSD and severe anxiety from being in the public eye. 

She explained that her celebrity status had resulted in her being at the center of numerous conspiracy theories and scandals. According to Grimes, her fame had also caused her to feel extremely unsafe since she had to deal with stalkers who came to her doorstep when she was pregnant with her first child with Musk. Likewise, in an August 2022 tweet, Grimes claimed that some journalists were committing a gross invasion of her family's privacy by trying to gather intimate details about their lives, like their home address.

Speaking to Music Feeds in 2012, Grime opened up about the deeply personal meaning behind her track "Oblivion," saying, "The song is about being violently assaulted and it made me crazy for a few years. I got really paranoid walking around at night and started feeling really unsafe." Meanwhile, in a 2012 chat with Spin, the Canadian singer admitted that the assault left her feeling "terrified of men" to the point where she didn't want to have any sort of relationship with them. 

However, Grimes also noted that she was proud she had managed to turn the life-altering experience into something empowering by writing about it in "Oblivion" and using it to further her career. So, she was happy to sing the track with the people who came out to her shows every night. Meanwhile, when Grimes spoke to Fader in 2015, she voiced her frustrations about how society had normalized sexual assault and death threats against female musicians. 

She also recalled how a stranger had once managed to sneak into her dressing room and started kissing her without her consent. When she shoved the man away, he said, "Ha! I kiss-raped you," and walked out. Grimes also voiced her concerns about the music industry while discussing Kesha's lawsuit against Dr. Luke in a 2016 Rolling Stone interview. Although she made it clear that she wasn't familiar with the ins and outs of their case, she had dealt with several producers asking her for sex in exchange for completing a track they had already started working on.

In September 2022, Grimes took to X to write that although people preached about accepting and loving everyone, it was rare to see anyone accept neurodivergent folks who didn't fit into their definition of the word. She explained that she knew she wouldn't be able to behave how society believed a regular person should and had experienced the isolation that her behavior brought. 

When an X commentator asked the Canadian singer how they could be diagnosed with autism, she answered that she had taken her kids to get tested and realized that they had fared far better than her. "I got misdiagnosed with restless leg syndrome and schizzoeffeftive disorder so if anything touching ur body feels like a million burning suns staring into ur soul with their eyes etc I'd recommend checking I suppose," she advised. 

Then, in March 2025, the "Kill V. Maim" singer shared that she had been officially diagnosed with autism and ADHD earlier in the year. However, she also believed that she had dyslexia since she required a spell-checking tool to spell correctly. Grimes apparently took a more optimistic outlook on her late diagnosis since she wrote that she would've been compelled to put less effort into her schoolwork and had to start medication if she had been diagnosed earlier. Additionally, Grimes wrote that she grappled with the rampant spread of misinformation on the Internet surrounding ADHD and believed that it was "explicitly anti civilizational and geared towards making people worse."

In February 2025, Elon Musk's ex Grimes took to X to share several since-deleted tweets to urge him to weigh in on their child's "medical crisis," per People. In another tweet, the "Shinigami Eyes" explained that she had chosen to voice her concerns publicly because Musk had dodged all her attempts at communication. Additionally, Grimes stated that their child "will suffer life long impairment" if her ex remained passive. 

Meanwhile, in a tweet responding to a critic in March, Grimes explained that she had tried pleading with Musk to keep their kids off the Internet. When her words didn't have an effect, she tried to take legal action against her ex, but it was to no avail. Likewise, when TIME asked for her thoughts about her son X Æ A-12 being in The Oval Office beside Donald Trump and Musk, she answered, "I think fame is something you should consent to. Obviously, things will just be what they are." 

However, she still hoped that people would stop sharing photos of X on the Internet to minimize the damage caused by the invasion of privacy. Unfortunately, things weren't too different even when Musk and Grimes were in the middle of their on-again-off-again relationship. A few weeks before the SpaceX founder and the singer-songwriter welcomed their second child, he welcomed twins with Neuralink exec Shivon Zilis via surrogacy. In a September 2023 tweet, Grimes voiced her frustrations with the matter, writing, "I have never even been allowed to see a photo of these children until this moment, despite the situation utterly ripping my family apart," per Page Six.