Is Joe Francis The Father Of Tila Tequila's Baby?

With the news that Tila Tequila is “100% pregnant,” many are wondering who fathered the child. Tila keeps dropping hints, saying the dad “is definitely someone ‘known’ and definitely someone in the ‘Entertainment Industry.'”

Not long after Tequila’s fiancée Casey Johnson passed away, it was revealed that Girls Gone Wild‘s Joe Francis may have been “the secret architect” behind the now infamous engagement announcement video as a way to hype Tequila’s recently launched web site, which is financed by Francis. Additionally, Tequila says that Francis was the one who informed her of Johnson’s death, and that she “hid” at his house afterward. Could this latest development be another—and decidedly more desperate and “bad idea jeans”—machination to gain publicity for Tequila and Francis’ business?

Tequila tells Radar that she and Casey Johnson planned this pregnancy together.

I know the whole world is confused as to why I am pregnant while I was still engaged to Casey. They wonder if I cheated on her…[W]e talked about one of us getting pregnant so we can have another baby of our own. We talked about this for a very long time, and we both agreed that I would be the one carrying the baby. She told me that since I would be the one carrying the baby, that I could choose who I want the father to be, and so I did.

And despite the sonogram image she’s provided, people are still skeptical of Tequila’s news—which she announced via Twitter on January 25—since this is (at least) the third time in the past year that she’s claimed to be with child. Back in May 2009, Tequila posted on MySpace that she was pregnant, and later Tweeted that the father was in the hip hop industry. “I’m talking about someone very very very very very fucking famous! He is like A-list famous and you follow him on Twitter too.” She later deleted the post and recanted her announcement, chalking the incident up to “rumors.” On December 19, roughly a week after announcing she was engaged to Johnson, Tequila said—again via Twitter—that she was pregnant, serving as a surrogate for her brother and his wife:

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: I am going to become a SURROGATE MOTHER for my brother & his wife!!! That is my xmas present to them. I’m pregnant!!!!… I love my brother! This will change his life and mine forever!!!

But this one seems real, as this is the longest she’s kept up her own personal PR machine to publicize her pregnancy. The normally prolific Tequila has been posting, with even more frequency, both on her blog about her unborn child (“[T]his baby….saved Mommy’s life, because many times before, Mommy has wanted to kill herself….but now with my baby….Mommy is going to live a long happy life now and be with my child”), as well as on her Twitter account. And although she’s insisted that she’s now “retiring” from Hollywood to be a mother, and will not “exploit” her baby, she can’t seem to control her virtual diarrhea, as evidenced by her manic Tweeting on the subject. Here’s a sample: