Tristan “Mack” Wilds not only got his professional big break on HBO’s legendary series The Wire, but he met his lady love and the future mother of his child there too. Fifteen years later he and Christina Hammond, 30, have started a family together, having welcomed their first child after Hammond suffered a miscarriage.
In December 2019 the 30-year-old actor and singer revealed the happy news via Instagram, telling fans he was going to be a father after enduring one of the darkest times in his life. “It just made me feel like I had to be a lot stronger,” Wilds says now. He is sitting inside New York City’s swanky Hugo Hotel, beside Hammond and their 5-month-old daughter, Tristyn, who is named after her proud papa. “I had a lot of growing up and strengthening to do to be ready to take care of this little one,” he adds.
Gazing at his child, who is drifting into a peaceful slumber while nestled in her mother’s arms,Wilds visibly melts as he opens up about fathering a daughter. “There’s a certain tenderness when you’re raising a girl,” he says. “You still have to be tough, but ultimately, when you’re raising a girl, you’re raising the closest thing that we have to God.”
When you’re raising a girl, you’re raising the closest thing that we have to God.”
-Mack Wilds
Although Hammond, a media and talent relations strategist, is soft-spoken and humble, they both agree that she’s the fire to Wilds’s water—a necessary balance. “Everybody says their woman is their rib,” says Wilds. “But she’s my backbone. In this business, it’s like, if you don’t have a backbone, you’re a gutted fish.”
As his partner in parenthood, Hammond says she also feels fortunate, not only for the solid relationship she and Wilds have but also for the bond that naturally exists with their daughter: “I’m a daddy’s girl, so I’m blessed that she’s able to have the experience of having such a good father, because there’s nothing like it. I know that he has her back 1,000 percent.”