Derrick Lewis talks about his family more than most UFC heavyweights. Not in a promotional way, not in the kind of scripted pre-fight media circuit way, he just brings them up. April. The kids. Houston.
It comes out naturally, and it has for years. For a man who built a public identity around chaos and one-liners, the domestic side of his life is surprisingly consistent and quietly serious. Here is everything that is actually known about April Davis, how the two of them ended up together, and why Lewis keeps coming back to her name when cameras are off.
Who is April Davis? Meet Derrick Lewis’ Wife
April Davis is a stay-at-home mother and has been with Lewis since well before any UFC contract or fight purse existed. She was there when he was driving a tow truck for AAA. She was with Lewis in every thick and thin.
Beyond that, there is genuinely not much on public record about her independently. Her date of birth has never been confirmed. Her family background, her life before meeting Lewis, her education. None of it has been shared publicly, either by her or by Lewis. She has not given much interviews. She has not spoken to media outside of a handful of joint appearances with Lewis.
While she have been spotted supporting “The Black Beast” at several fights over the years, she has never sought attention for herself. Most of her life remains private, with very few public statements or interviews available.
How Did Derrick Lewis and April Davis Meet?
The first introduction between Derrick Lewis and April Davis came through Lewis’s cousin Kendrick. Kendrick set up a phone call. That first conversation did not go the way most first conversations go.
April described it herself in a UFC interview: (Timestamp: 0:29-0:53)
Kendrick introduced me and Derek. So, we initially talked on the phone. When I first talked to Derek on the phone, he told me to look at his MySpace seconds picture and he was just telling he was like, “I’m really black.” So, I was like, “Okay.”
That was the opening line. A request to check a Myspace photo and a self-description that left April visibly amused and confused in equal measure. She played along. Most people would not have.
The next day, Lewis showed up at her front door. She had not given him her address. Kendrick almost certainly filled that gap. April recalled it plainly: “The next day he just showed up at my house. I didn’t tell him where I lived. So yeah.”
Lewis’s version of that first visit has a line that says everything about how he operates: “She was looking all good.” No overthinking, no strategy. He showed up, he saw her, that was that.
The two stayed in contact after that, spent time as friends before things progressed into a relationship, and eventually got serious. By 2017, they were getting married.
Derrick Lewis and April Davis’ Wedding: When and Where Derrick and April Davis get Married?
Lewis and April tied the knot on June 17, 2017, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Not Houston, not New Orleans. It was not a hometown wedding or a UFC-adjacent event. It was a deliberate decision to go somewhere quiet, somewhere separate from the MMA world, and get married without any of the noise that surrounds Lewis’s professional life.
The couple have never shared photos from the ceremony, never discussed the guest list, and have not given any details about the event itself. For a man with over two million Instagram followers, that level of silence on a personal milestone is intentional.
They have been married for close to nine years. In that time Lewis has fought for a UFC title, set the all-time knockout record in the promotion, gone through losing streaks, and come back from them. April has been present for all of it without making any of it about herself.
Speaking to ESPN, she reflected on how far her husband has come:
“I’m very proud of him we’ve been together 13 years so i’ve seen him you know he was a AAA truck driver. i’m so excited and proud of him to see how far he’s gotten in his career.”
Derrick Lewis’ Kids: How Many Children Do Lewis and April Have?
Lewis and April have three children together. Two sons and a daughter. That is the full extent of what is publicly confirmed.
Their names have never been released. Their ages have never been confirmed. Lewis has kept every detail about his children off the record since they were born, and he has explained why in straightforward terms: he does not want them exposed to the kind of attention that follows his public profile. He has also said his children do not know much about his fame as a UFC fighter.
The man with the most knockouts in UFC history has kids who are largely unaware of what their father does for a living and the scale at which he does it.
That is not an accident. It is a parenting decision from someone who grew up in a home with no father, in a neighbourhood where stability was not guaranteed, and who seems to have thought carefully about what kind of environment he wants to build for his own children.
Lewis mentioned before one of his fights that he was being more careful about what he said publicly because he was a father and did not want to set a bad example.
During an interview with MMA Junkie, the UFC heavyweight explained that his priorities changed once he became a father:
“It’s all on my kids, you know they depend on me. and i want them better life than I grow up, you know. It’s really all about my kids, its not about me anymore. I had my chance, I sc*ew things so it’s all, all it is for my kids.”
Is April Davis on Social Media?
If we look for April Davis on social media, we will not find much. She has no active public Instagram. She does not post on X. She does not appear regularly on Lewis’s accounts despite him having well over two million followers on Instagram at @thebeastufc.
Lewis posts family content occasionally but keeps his children’s faces out of it. April appears in rare joint media appearance. “The Black Beast” has protected that choice without ever making a point of explaining it. He posts his KOs, his training clips, his locker room content. The family stays separate. Given where he came from and what he has said about wanting to shield his kids from the weight of his public profile, the decision is not hard to understand.
