MIAMI (Court TV) — Football star Tyreek Hill sat in court on Tuesday as his ex-wife took the stand to testify about abuse she alleges she suffered during their marriage.
Tyreek Hill appears in court on Oct. 6, 2026. (Court TV)
Hill’s ex-wife, Lakeeta Vaccaro, 30, has sued the wide receiver in a case tied to their divorce, alleging multiple instances of abuse; Hill, 33, has denied the allegations and does not face any criminal charges.
Vaccaro and Hill met at the University of Miami and were engaged in 2021. The couple broke off the engagement after a few months, but reunited after two years and were married on Nov. 8, 2023.
Before the wedding, the couple had not signed any prenuptial agreement, but one month after the ceremony, Hill began pushing for her to sign a postnuptial agreement, Vaccaro testified Tuesday. “He was just angry every time he brought it up, it was like we can never have a civilized conversation, it just ended up being a whole argument,” she said. The proposed agreement, Vaccaro’s attorney said, contained a clause that specified she would receive only $1 for any claims of emotional damage or harm.
The arguments turned physical, Vaccaro said, when she didn’t give her new husband the answers he wanted. “I didn’t say exactly what he wanted to hear, and he ends up putting his hands on me, trying to grab my ring, grab my necklace off and pushing me to the bed and putting his hands around my neck.”
“When this defendant did not get his way with Lakeeta, he took the same approach with her that he took in his professional life,” Vaccaro’s attorney, Paul Schwiep, told the jury. “He was violent. He exploded. And then after an episode, he would retreat; he would apologize.”
Schwiep warned jurors they would not see direct evidence of the alleged abuse. “Most of the incidents that occurred happened behind closed doors. There’s not a lot of photographs of what happened,” he said. “Lakeeta wasn’t trying to build a case. She was trying to build a life.”
Lakeeta Vaccaro testifies on Oct. 6, 2026. (Court TV)
Vaccaro’s complaint alleges eight instances of abuse, but her attorney said the final straw came on April 7, 2025, after the couple’s child was born. Schwiep played video from a surveillance camera in the child’s bedroom as part of his opening statement to the jury on Tuesday, but the media were not allowed to record or show it for privacy reasons.
Hill’s attorney, Christi Bright, acknowledged the video showed her client using bad language but insisted there was no evidence of abuse in the relationship. “The evidence will show that the most objective witnesses in this case are the neutral law enforcement officers who responded in real time,” Bright said. “Officers from three separate stations — Davie, Orlando and Sunrise — all responding to marital disputes. These officers were on scene to investigate and were duty-bound to make an arrest if the evidence supported one. Yet, across all three departments, the evidence will show that not one officer … found one strike, one bruise, one mark.”
Bright said that Vaccaro’s first petition for divorce did not mention any allegations of domestic violence, and it was only after the outcome of her divorce was “not as she had requested” that she filed an amended petition with the new allegations.
Hill is a wide receiver who most recently played for the Miami Dolphins and went into the 2026-2027 NFL season as a free agent. He previously played for the Kansas City Chiefs and won Super Bowl LIV with the team.
Vaccaro’s lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
