Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesLevi Johnston apparently wants to play more of a role in his firstborn child's life.
Bristol Palin's ex-boyfriend has filed for joint custody of their 4-year-old son Tripp, according to public records.
Johnston, who is now married and the father of 1-year-old daughter Breeze Beretta with wife Sunny, agreed in 2010 to let Tripp live primarily with his mom while he enjoyed visitation rights and paid child support.
According to Palin's camp, however, Johnston, 23, never really held up his end of the bargain. Her attorney reportedly said last month that Tripp's dad owed $66,000 in support.
Prior to that, a notice of pending dimissal had been filed in July 2012 in an Alaska court due to inactivity in their still technically open custody case.
But while Palin hasn't been in the habit of saying anything particularly nice about her ex in public, she did tell E! News after Berretta was born that she wished them "the best" and had sent the family flowers in honor of their new arrival.
On an episode of her Lifetime series Bristol Palin: Life's a Tripp, Sarah Palin's daughter actually lamented that Johnston was her son's father.
"I failed as a mom because I picked the worst possible candidate in the world that I could have been dating and got pregnant with," she said on the show's June 26, 2012, episode. "Tripp was what God gave me...I just wish anyone else could have been his dad."
Bristol was pregnant with Tripp when her mom was chosen as John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential election. She and Levi were played by Melissa Farman and Justin Gaston in the HBO movie Game Change, for which Julianne Moore won an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for her role as Sarah Palin (even though Bristol said the actress didn't do a particularly good job).
Johnston spilled all sorts of so-called secrets about living with the Palin family during that time in his 2001 book Deer in the Headlights.