The Fight Outside The Ring
In a world where baby photos can rack up millions of likes, one of boxing’s brightest stars is in a very different kind of fight. This time, there is no belt on the line. The battle is over who gets to decide if a one-year-old can appear on Instagram.
According to court documents reported by TMZ Sports, world champion boxer Devin Haney and his ex-fiancée, Leena Sayed, are locked in a dispute over their child Khrome’s presence online. At the center of it all is a custody order that turns every potential post into a legal question.
The issue is not whether they love their child. It is who controls her digital footprint.
From Custody Pact To Courtroom Clash
Per the filing cited by TMZ Sports, Haney and Sayed agreed in a custody order filed in October 2025 that neither would post their child on the internet unless both parents gave written consent. It was a pact that reflected a growing concern among public figures about privacy and safety for their children.
Now, Sayed has returned to court asking to change that agreement. In her new filing, she claims Haney is using the consent requirement in what she calls an unduly burdensome way. She says the result is that she is effectively blocked from sharing images of Khrome at all, or limited to rare moments that happen when the child is physically near Haney.
The dispute turns something as simple as a cozy family snapshot into a scene from a legal drama. Every time Sayed wants to post their daughter, she has to ask, wait, and hope for a yes.
The Pajama Photo That Became Evidence
To back up her argument, Sayed attached several exhibits to the court documents. One example described in the filing involves a request that feels familiar to any parent with a camera roll full of matching outfits.
Sayed says she asked Haney for approval to post a photo of herself and their child in coordinating pajamas. According to the papers obtained by TMZ Sports, Haney responded in a way that left no room for negotiation, allegedly telling her to post nothing with the baby.
In her view, this is exactly how the consent clause has become a barrier instead of a safeguard. A simple bedtime photo with her child turned into a hard no.
Yet the documents describe a very different reaction when the spotlight was on Haney’s career. Sayed was allowed to post an image of their child watching him fight in Saudi Arabia in October 2025. Not only was that post approved, the report notes that Haney even reshared it to his own story.
The contrast is striking. A quiet moment in matching pajamas, denied. A moment that ties their child directly to one of his biggest professional stages, celebrated and amplified.
Inside Leena Sayed’s Case
In a declaration quoted by TMZ Sports, Sayed explains why she is asking a judge to intervene. For her, what happens on her social feeds is not a trivial detail.
She writes that social media is an essential part of how she communicates her life to others, saying that “social media is an important part of how I share my life with friends, family, and with my social media followers.”
She goes even further, naming her daughter directly. “Khrome, and her representation on my social media account, is important to me,” Sayed states in the declaration. She adds, “I want the right to be able to post her without the requirement of Devin’s approval, which I believe to be unduly withheld without judicial intervention.”
It is a revealing choice of words. Representation. Approval. Intervention. In Sayed’s telling, this is not just about cute baby content, it is about who gets to publicly shape her role as a mother and who holds the power to silence that part of her identity.
The filing centers on Sayed’s perspective. Haney’s own views on social media and privacy for his daughter are not laid out in detail in the documents described in the report, and his team has not publicly commented in that coverage.
Devin Haney’s Ex Files To Change Custody Order, Wants To Post Child On Social Media https://t.co/Ff6H0dMDx6 pic.twitter.com/8UXaDEU3Td
— TMZ (@TMZ) January 10, 2026
When Your Child Becomes Content
Even if you have never watched a single round of Haney’s fights, the core of this dispute will feel familiar to a lot of parents. The question of how much to show children online has become one of the hottest debated topics in modern parenting.
Some celebrity couples make a point of hiding their children’s faces entirely. Others build massive audiences around family-centered content and everyday moments that make fans feel like they are part of the household. Many more fall somewhere in between, sharing a few carefully chosen images and keeping the rest offline.
For separated or divorced parents, that decision can get even more complicated. Legal experts have noted that social media clauses are increasingly common in custody orders, where parents outline what can be posted, by whom, and under what conditions. It is one thing to argue over screen time. It is another to argue over a child’s image as potential content.
In Haney and Sayed’s case, the documents describe a tight restriction that required both parents to sign off on any post. On paper, it reads like a compromise meant to protect their child. In practice, according to Sayed, it has turned into a digital lock on a part of her life she wants to share.
The Celebrity Factor
When one parent is a high-profile athlete, the stakes rise even higher. Haney’s fights attract global attention, with cameras trained on every angle. That spotlight does not turn off once he leaves the ring. It lingers in the comments, the tags, the fan accounts, and the reposts.
Including a child in that spotlight is not a neutral act. A simple post can travel far beyond family and friends, landing on gossip pages, reaction accounts, and news sites. It can also be used to build a certain image, whether that is the devoted father, the close-knit family, or the victorious champion celebrated by his mini superfan at home.
For a mother who is also active on social media, that dynamic can start to feel unbalanced. When a photo of the child highlights the athlete’s narrative, it is welcomed. When it reflects her own private joy, she says it is blocked. That is the unspoken tension running beneath Sayed’s filing.
None of this changes the fact that both parents are presumably trying to navigate an unprecedented digital world while raising a very real, very young child. The law is only just beginning to catch up with what it means for a toddler to have a presence online before they can even speak in full sentences.
What Happens Next For Devin, Leena And Khrome
TMZ Sports reports that a court hearing on Sayed’s request is scheduled for later this month. That is where a judge will have to sort through what is in the child’s best interests, how much weight to give parental autonomy, and where to draw the line between protection and control.
The court could leave the current rule in place, tweak it, or give Sayed more freedom to post without formal written consent from Haney. Every outcome carries its own ripple effects for how this family lives online and how other celebrity parents structure their own custody agreements.
For now, every new photo of Khrome hangs in limbo, trapped between a mother’s wish to share her life and a father’s insistence on limits that he believes safeguard their child. The images sit in a camera roll instead of a feed, waiting on a legal answer.
There is a certain irony to all of it. Devin Haney has built a career on stepping into a ring where millions can watch him take punches in real time. Yet some of the most emotionally charged blows in his life may be happening far from the cameras, in a quiet family courtroom, over whether a baby girl appears in a grid of little squares.
In an age when a single tap can show the world your child, Haney and Sayed are forcing a judge to decide how many taps a parent should legally be allowed. The outcome will not change who wins or loses in the ring. It will decide who controls the story of a little girl’s first years online.
