Julian Assange once boasted of having at least four children in perhaps as many countries, but, surprisingly for a defender of truth, no one knows if that is true.
The freed WikiLeaks founder has three confirmed children from two relationships, but, fueled by his own comments, rumors persist that he may have many more.
He described himself on the dating site OkCupid as “87 percent slut” and said he was looking for “a siren for (a) love story, kids, and the occasional criminal conspiracy.”
Assange, 52, had his first child, Daniel, in 1989 – when he was just 18 – with his wife Teresa, 17, after the couple met at a program for gifted children in Melbourne when she was only 16 years.
Teresa fled the marriage shortly after Daniel’s first birthday, leading to a bitter custody battle between Teresa and Assange.
In a 2010 interview with the website Crikey, Daniel, a software designer in Melbourne at the time, revealed that he had lost contact with Assange, despite his father asking him to join Wikileaks in 2007.
Daniel, however, denied that there was any enmity between them.
“It was just a general deterioration of relations,” he said.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange kisses his wife Stella Moris after arriving at Canberra airport.
“I was approaching my late teens, and a single parent and a teenage child don’t mix very well in a household.
‘As for him not contacting me after that, it was probably, at least in part, an attempt to protect me.
“If it became known that I was the son and that I was directly involved in some way, there was the possibility of direct retaliation, and my father was quite concerned about those things.”
In 2006, Assange launched WikiLeaks and also created the OkCupid dating profile using the name of American science fiction writer Harry Harrison.
WARNING: Do you want a normal, down-to-earth guy? Keep moving… I’m DANGER, ACHTUNG!’ the profile boasted.
Assange said he was 36 years old, 6ft 2in and a “passionate and often stubborn activist intellectual… who ran a dangerous and consuming human rights project”.
Stella Moris (center) and her sons, Gabriel (right) and Max (left) leave Belmarsh prison after visiting her partner and father, Julian Assange, in 2020.
In 2010, when his fame exploded when Wikileaks published 250,000 secret American diplomatic cables, Assange was said to be enjoying the love life of a rock star.
“Many women were extremely attracted to Julian and, after a few minutes, offered themselves to him,” a Swedish WikiLeaks worker told the Daily Mail.
“They were like groupies with (Rolling Stones singer) Mick Jagger, and he takes advantage of those opportunities.”
In his book Inside WikiLeaks, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a colleague at the pro-transparency website, wrote that Assange often boasted of having at least four “darling children.”
“He seemed to enjoy the idea of having many, many Julians, one on each continent,” Domscheit-Berg wrote.
In a 2015 open letter to French newspaper Le Monde Assange revealed that he had a son who lived with an unnamed mother in France.
One American journalist even alleged that Assange “stole” his English girlfriend while they were eating at a restaurant in Stockholm in 2010.
The journalist claimed that Assange ignored him and instead focused intensely on his girlfriend, even following her as she went out for a cigarette.
“When they had not returned after 45 minutes I went to see what was happening,” said the journalist.
Daniel Assange is Assange’s son from a relationship the WikiLeaks founder had in his teens.
“They were close together a little further down the street, and Julian was whispering something in her ear.”
The journalist later said he saw his girlfriend and Assange walking hand in hand, and claimed that when he challenged the WikiLeaks founder, he “dropped into the classic fighter’s pose, with his fists raised.”
“Assange seemed to enjoy humiliating me,” the journalist said.
However, a few days after this incident, Assange would have two sexual encounters which led to two women, who were only named as Miss A and M, making accusations of sexual misconduct against him.
When asked by a Swedish newspaper to comment on the police allegations, Assange responded: “Their identities have been made anonymous, so even I have no idea who they are.”
On November 18, 2010, the Swedish government ordered Assange’s arrest on suspicion of rape, three cases of sexual abuse and unlawful coercion were issued, and a European arrest warrant was issued for him.
However, after Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and fought legal battles against extradition to Sweden, prosecutors dropped the case in 2019 saying the time lapse had “weakened the evidence” they would rely on.
While Assange was at the Ecuadorian embassy, where he sought political asylum, one of his most glamorous visitors was Baywatch TV star Pamela Anderson, sparking rumors that the pair were romantically involved.
Baywatch TV star Pamela Anderson frequently visited Assange when he was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, sparking rumors that the pair were in a romantic relationship.
During an interview with Kyle and Jackie O of Australian KIIS FM in 2017, Assange was asked about this directly.
‘What I really want to know is what’s going on between you and Pamela Anderson?’ Sandilands asked, “Is there some kind of romance there?”
“Yes, a lot of people want to know what is useful to draw attention to the situation, but, eh, Pamela Anderson is an impressive figure,” he said while laughing.
Furthermore, Anderson said that she and Assange were just friends, but that their relationship was “invigorating, sexy and fun.”
‘One night, Julián and I shared a strong bottle of mezcal. We passed out and I woke up at four in the morning with his cat on my chest,” Anderson wrote in his 2023 memoir.
“We had both fallen asleep after a rather frisky, fun, alcohol-induced night. My car was still waiting outside, and I’m sure that got a few tongues wagging.
In 2011, while under house arrest, Assange met with South African lawyer Sara Gonzalez Devant, 28, at a property owned by Wikileaks supporter Captain Vaughan Smith.
After joining Assange’s legal team to help fight extradition to Sweden, the lawyer changed her name to Stella Moris to safeguard her identity and protect her family.
The couple bonded over their strong beliefs in freedom of information and also shared stories from their disconnected childhoods.
“He (Assange) had a very intense look,” Moris said of Assange in a 2021 interview with The Guardian.
‘He didn’t have small talk. He wanted to know where he came from. The day I met him we talked for two hours. I told him about my life. Julian is like no one I’ve ever met.
Assange and his wife Stella Moris kept their relationship secret for three years, even when they became engaged and had two children.
‘I spent a lot of time with him. I got to know him,” she says.
Even though Assange camped out at the Ecuadorian embassy, the couple managed to start dating, but kept their relationship a secret for three years.
“We set up a tent for privacy and escapism; it was pretty cozy,” Moris said.
‘The cameras multiplied over time. In the end, there was nowhere to go without someone watching you… We never showed affection in front of people. We had some conversations in writing, like when I told her she was pregnant.’
They got clandestinely engaged in 2017, the same year their first child, Gabriel, was born, and Max followed in 2019.
Moris later revealed that she managed to keep her pregnancies a secret from her family by wearing baggy clothes.
In November 2021, the couple married at Belmarsh Prison in London and Mrs Moris wore a dress designed by Vivienne Westwood.
Only six guests attended, including Assange’s two brothers and his father.
After winning his protracted legal battle to avoid extradition to the United States and flying to Canberra on Wednesday night, Assange was finally able to give his wife a hug and a kiss as a free man.
“It was a long time coming, we weren’t allowed to kiss in Belmarsh Prison, so it was the best day of my life,” Mrs Moris, who campaigned tirelessly for her husband’s freedom, told Channel Nine.
“We were crying and overwhelmed with emotion, everyone was crying when we entered the room, everyone was crying and I’m still crying.
“It was indescribable and it was incredible.”
