With her marriage to Simon Guobadia officially over, Porsha Williams is opening up about why the relationship ended and when she realized it could not be saved.
Nearly two weeks after finalizing her divorce, The Real Housewives of Atlanta star appears on People magazine’s new digital cover, which features Williams recreating Angela Bassett’s iconic scene from the film Waiting to Exhale, where the actress’ character Bernadine lights her husband’s belongings on fire for cheating.
Williams, 44, filed for divorce in February 2024, after 15 months of marriage to Guobadia.
In the accompanying interview, she told People there was no infidelity in the marriage. Yet, she decided to walk away “out of necessity to protect myself.”
The divorce was finalized on June 11 in Georgia.
Guobadia, 61, appeared in court via Zoom, after he was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, held for nearly four months, then deported back to his native Nigeria.
“You go through different stages,” Williams said about the divorce. “You have that anger. You have the moment where you have to fight for your life in a court situation. And then, toward the end, you have the clarity where you realize you are still blessed. Your family is by our side, your child is protected; there’s a whole new life that you can start.”
Related: ‘RHOA’ Star Simon Guobadia Details ‘Nightmare’ Conditions During ICE Detention
Williams said the two started having problems after she discovered “complex” issues with his legal status. She said she hired an immigration attorney in January 2024.
“We had a real serious conversation because, being a supportive wife, I wanted to deal with this head-on,” she said. “I got it spelled out completely by an attorney who had been in immigration for 30 years. And my conclusion was: ‘I don’t want you to travel.’ I begged for him not to leave the country. That was not honored.”
A few weeks later she said the two argued to “a point of no return.”
“There was some paperwork that needed to be handled, and I wanted to bring in some attorneys to represent me, and that was frowned upon,” she recalled. “And it wasn’t really what he said, it was a look—a look that just felt dark. I just knew I was not looking at the same person I loved before. I could tell that he was just pretty much checked out of the relationship at that point.”
Eight days later, she filed for divorce.
As part of their divorce settlement, Guobadia was ordered to pay Williams $40,000 a month in alimony for the next 14 to 15 months. She also gets to keep a Rolls-Royce he gifted her. Guobadia must pay her legal fees and Williams has until 2027 to decide whether she wants to keep living in the $7,000,000 home they shared, according to All About the Real Housewives.
Guobadia had a history of immigration problems and was facing deportation when he left the U.S. for Dubai and the United Arab Emirates after he and Porsha separated
He tried for years to obtain U.S. citizenship, but a guilty plea to bank and credit card fraud after a 1987 arrest and previous deportations made citizenship unlikely, as previously reported.
Earlier this month, Guobadia did an interview with Us Weekly. The Nigerian entrepreneur said he was taken into custody by ICE agents the moment he touched down in the U.S. for a divorce hearing at the beginning of the year.
He said “about seven agents with ICE” boarded the plane, escorted him off and “slapped the cuffs on.”
Guobadia said as the Trump administration cracks down on undocumented immigrants with prior convictions, he believes Williams or someone close to her, told ICE when he would be returning to the U.S. for his divorce hearing.
“It felt like a target because they had no reason [and] it felt like a target on a number of fronts. One, for sure, is the new administration and new administration policies, they’ve heightened their targets apparently as agents are waiting, looking through flight [logs] for names that may have popped up on their radar and take them into custody,” he said.
On June 19, Guobadia let his followers on social media know he was back in the United Arab Emirates after his U.S. immigration drama and wrote on Instagram: “Happy Thursday. #iamback.”
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