Tyler Roby Pippen: Who She Was and What Really Happened
Search Tyler Roby Pippen and something strange happens. One article describes a quiet, introspective young man who valued authenticity.
Search Tyler Roby Pippen and something strange happens. One article describes a quiet, introspective young man who valued authenticity. Another talks about a son who passed away at a young age without disclosing when. A third mixes her story with that of Antron Pippen, Scottie’s eldest son who died in 2021 at the age of 33.
Almost none of them get the basic facts right.
Tyler Roby Pippen was not a son. She was Scottie Pippen’s daughter — the twin sister of Taylor Pippen — born on July 20, 1994, at Mercy Hospital in Chicago. She lived for nine days. She passed away on July 29, 1994, before most of the world knew she existed, before the paternity dispute that followed her birth had been resolved, before her father had accepted responsibility for her or her twin.
She deserves a story that gets her right. This is that story.
Quick Answer
Tyler Roby Pippen was the daughter of NBA legend Scottie Pippen and his former girlfriend Sonya Roby. Born on July 20, 1994, at Mercy Hospital in Chicago, she was the twin sister of Taylor Pippen. Tyler passed away on July 29, 1994 — nine days after her birth. Her cause of death was never publicly disclosed by the family. She is one of two of Scottie Pippen’s children who have died.
Who Was Tyler Roby Pippen?
Tyler Roby Pippen was born on July 20, 1994, in Chicago, Illinois, alongside her twin sister Taylor. Their mother was Sonya Roby, Scottie Pippen’s then-girlfriend, who has been described in press reports as a model. Their father was one of the most famous basketball players alive — the Chicago Bulls were in the midst of their dynasty years, and Scottie Pippen was at the peak of his career.
She and Taylor arrived that summer as a pair. Nine days later, Tyler was gone.
No photographs of Tyler have ever been shared publicly. The Pippen family — and Sonya Roby — chose to keep her memory entirely private, which is both understandable and appropriate. Neonatal loss is among the most painful experiences a family can face, and the absence of public documentation is not a gap to fill with speculation. It is a boundary to respect.
One thing is worth stating clearly because so many websites get it wrong: Tyler Roby Pippen was Scottie Pippen’s daughter. Not his son. Multiple low-quality articles circulating online describe Tyler with male pronouns and invent biographical details — a thoughtful young man, a quiet personality, an unspecified later-life death. None of that is accurate. Verified sources including Marie Claire, Hollywood Life, and NBC News are consistent: Tyler was a girl who died in the hospital nine days after her birth in 1994.
The Complicated Circumstances of Her Birth
The summer of 1994 was not a straightforward time for Tyler’s arrival into the Pippen family.
When Sonya Roby came forward with news of the twins, Scottie Pippen denied paternity. He filed a legal suit disputing responsibility for the girls. The dispute moved through the courts. A DNA test was conducted on October 29, 1994 — more than three months after Tyler had already died — and confirmed that Scottie was the biological father of both twins.
By the time that result came back, Tyler had been gone for three months.
After the DNA confirmation, Scottie agreed to pay $15,000 in outstanding medical bills from the twins’ birth and to provide health insurance for Taylor through the NBA. Sonya Roby was awarded full custody of Taylor. Visiting rights were negotiated, though Taylor herself later made clear that a meaningful father-daughter relationship never really developed.
The timeline matters because it places Tyler’s brief life in context. She was born into an unresolved legal dispute. Her father had not accepted responsibility for her. Her mother was navigating the loss of one twin while caring for the other and fighting a paternity case at the same time. The human weight of that is considerable.
Scottie Pippen has never spoken publicly about Tyler at length. That silence is, by all indications, a deliberate and private choice — not an oversight, not indifference, but grief kept where the family chose to keep it.
Tyler Roby Pippen’s Cause of Death
The cause of Tyler Roby Pippen’s death has never been publicly disclosed.
This is the question that drives 90 monthly searches — “Tyler Roby Pippen cause of death” — and the honest answer is that no verified source has ever reported it. Not NBC News. Not People. Not Marie Claire. Not any credible outlet that covered Scottie Pippen’s family during that period or since.
Any article that claims to know the cause is either fabricating information or repeating a fabrication made elsewhere. The family chose not to share the medical details, which is entirely their right and an entirely common response to neonatal loss.
What can be said with accuracy is this: Tyler died on July 29, 1994, nine days after birth, in Chicago. Neonatal deaths — defined as deaths within the first 28 days of life — occurred at higher rates in the early 1990s than they do today. The causes are varied and often complex. Without a family statement or medical record, there is nothing further to report.
The silence is not a mystery to be solved. It is a family’s privacy, and it should be left that way.
Taylor Pippen — Tyler’s Surviving Twin
Taylor Pippen came into the world alongside Tyler on July 20, 1994, and the two of them shared their first and only nine days together.
Taylor was raised by her mother, Sonya Roby, with full custody. The relationship between Taylor and her famous father has been complicated, and Taylor has not shied away from saying so. In a 2016 interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, she said she did not have a father-daughter relationship with Scottie Pippen. “I was born and raised near Chicago,” she said. “You can imagine how many questions I have been asked about my father.”
Despite the distance from her father’s world, Taylor inherited his athletic drive — though she channelled it differently. She played volleyball throughout high school at Carmel Catholic in Illinois, then at Southern Illinois University, where she was a two-time all-conference player. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a minor in Marketing.
In 2016, she signed a professional volleyball contract with Spanish club Voleibol Haris and won the National Volleyball Cup in her single season abroad. She has since returned to Chicago, where she serves as a Junior Board Member of Beyond Sports, a foundation supporting student-athletes from under-resourced communities in the Chicago area.
She built her career independently, on her own terms, in a sport her father never played. The surviving twin made her own mark.
The Pippen Family: Joy, Tragedy, and Eight Children
To understand Tyler’s place in the family, it helps to know the full picture.
Scottie Pippen fathered eight children across four relationships. Seven are living as of 2026.
Antron Pippen (1987–2021) was Scottie’s firstborn, his only child with first wife Karen McCollum. He played college basketball at Texas A&M International University and later with the World Basketball Association. He died on April 18, 2021, at the age of 33. Scottie announced his death on Instagram, sharing that Antron had suffered from chronic asthma throughout his life. “Antron suffered from chronic asthma and if he hadn’t had it, I truly believe he would’ve made it to the NBA,” Scottie wrote on Instagram. “He never let that get him down, though — Antron stayed positive and worked hard, and I am so proud of the man that he became.”
Taylor Pippen (1994) is Tyler’s twin sister, as described above.
Sierra Pippen (1995) is Scottie’s daughter with former fiancée Yvette De Leon. She maintains a low profile and rarely appears in media coverage.
Scotty Pippen Jr., Preston, Justin, and Sophia are the four children Scottie had with his second wife, Larsa Pippen, during their marriage from 1997 to 2018. Scotty Jr. has followed most closely in his father’s footsteps, playing in the NBA with the Memphis Grizzlies.
Tyler and Antron are the two Pippen children who have died. The confusion between them online is common — partly because both names appear in searches about Scottie’s family losses, and partly because low-quality content farms have blurred their stories together. They are distinct: Tyler was a daughter who died as a newborn in 1994; Antron was a son who died as an adult in 2021.
What Scottie Pippen Has Said About Loss
Scottie has been more publicly vocal about Antron’s death than about Tyler’s — partly because Antron lived a life that the public had some awareness of, and partly because Tyler’s story has always been kept within the family.
After Antron died, Scottie spoke to PEOPLE magazine about what the cumulative losses in his life had taught him. “I take that every day,” he said. “It isn’t just something that I used through sports or anything, but it’s telling a good friend that you love them, or telling your kids every day that you love them. You never know when the last time you may see them again. That’s never something that you can predict.”
Those words were about Antron. But they were also about everything — his father, Preston, who died in 1990 after a stroke. A career defined by winning and partnership and then conducted largely in Michael Jordan’s shadow. A family life that has been more complicated than his championship rings suggest.
Tyler’s name almost never appears in Scottie’s public statements. The grief over a nine-day-old daughter, held privately for three decades, is not something you work through in an Instagram post. Some losses simply stay inside.
The Takeaway
Tyler Roby Pippen lived for nine days in the summer of 1994. She was a girl, a twin, a daughter whose father had not yet accepted paternity when she died. She left no public record, no photographs, no statements from anyone who knew her.
What she left was a place in a family story that has included six NBA championships, profound personal loss, complicated relationships, and children who have chosen very different lives. Getting her story right matters — her gender, her dates, the honest acknowledgement that her cause of death is unknown and private — because accuracy is the minimum any person’s story deserves.
She was not a footnote. She was Tyler Roby Pippen, and she was here.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Tyler Roby Pippen? Tyler Roby Pippen was the daughter of NBA legend Scottie Pippen and his former girlfriend Sonya Roby. Born on July 20, 1994, at Mercy Hospital in Chicago, she was the twin sister of Taylor Pippen. She passed away nine days after birth on July 29, 1994. Her cause of death was never publicly disclosed.
How did Tyler Roby Pippen die? The cause of Tyler Roby Pippen’s death has never been publicly disclosed by the Pippen family. She passed away on July 29, 1994, nine days after her birth. No verified source — including NBC News, People, or Marie Claire — has ever reported a confirmed cause. Any article claiming to know the cause is not based on confirmed information.
Was Tyler Roby Pippen a boy or a girl? Tyler Roby Pippen was a girl — Scottie Pippen’s daughter. Multiple online articles incorrectly describe Tyler as a son or use male pronouns. Verified sources including Marie Claire, Hollywood Life, NBC News, and People consistently confirm that Tyler was female, the twin sister of Taylor Pippen.
Who is Tyler Roby Pippen’s twin sister? Tyler’s twin sister is Taylor Pippen, born on the same day — July 20, 1994. Taylor was raised by her mother Sonya Roby, played professional volleyball in Spain in 2016, graduated from Southern Illinois University with a degree in Accounting, and works in Chicago as a Junior Board Member of the Beyond Sports foundation.
How many of Scottie Pippen’s children have died? Two. Tyler Roby Pippen died on July 29, 1994, nine days after birth. Antron Pippen, Scottie’s eldest son with his first wife Karen McCollum, died on April 18, 2021, at the age of 33 from complications related to chronic asthma. Scottie has seven living children as of 2026.
