Chris Weeks/WireImage.com; FlashCity.comOther scandals come and go—Tiger Woods' is forever. Or maybe it just seems like it.
Just when it seemed like Tiger was, well, out of the woods, along comes porn star, alleged escort and mistress Devon James, who lobbed the not wholly unbelievable claim that the golf phenom secretly fathered her now 9-year-old son.
If it's any consolation (and it probably won't be), that at least places the boy's birth prior to Tiger's walk down the aisle with Elin Nordegren. But is the porn star to be believed?
Absolutely, definitively—and clearly judgmentally—not, according to her mother.
Sandra Brinling, the mother of James (whose real name, incidentally, is Melinda Brinling-Caso) tells E! News that Woods is not only not Austin's father, but labeled her daughter a "pathological liar" for even alleging it.
Her current husband, she claims, helped James come up with the illegitimate child tale as a way to extract money from the embattled athlete.
"[James is] only out to lie, steal and cheat," she said, going on to lob some further damning, character-killing accusations at her (we're guessing estranged) daughter.
"All she is looking for is to get money from him."
Sounds like mom wasn't too thrilled with her daughter's choice of career. Or parenting style.
"When Austin was born, Melinda lived with us and at the time she was married…not to the father, because the father was in prison," Brinling said. "She would drop Austin off for three, six, nine months at a time without even coming to visit him. We've had Austin for 90 percent of his life."
And not just Austin. Brinling said that she received full custody of the boy last month and now has custody of all three of James' children. The kids live with her and James' ex-husband—the father of her other two children—in Bradenton, Fla.
"I have adopted her son," Brinling told E! News. "His dad just recently got out of prison. His dad's rights were taken away. Hers were taken away last year, sometime in July."
According to Brinling, neither of the parents pay child support.
"She should be paying child support for three children...she will get out of paying it however she can. She owed over $25,000 and the judge made her pay $57. That doesn't make sense."
Also not making sense to Brinling? That her daughter has ever even met Woods, let alone mothered his secret love child.
"In the last two days I have heard three different ways that she has said that she met Tiger Woods. One of the ways was through Paul Azinger. He was friends of our next door neighbor. His kids went to the same school our kids went to, a private Christian school. She said he introduced her to Tiger in Hawaii and Melinda has never been to Hawaii."
And while Brinling is quick to apologize for her daughter's behavior—both real and alleged—there's clearly no love lost between the duo.
"I would love to talk to Tiger Woods and apologize that that is my daughter doing that and tell him the real truth that I know."
(Originally published on June 15, 2010 at 11:23 a.m. PT)