Real Housewives of Atlanta alum Simon Guobadia has offered a look at what it’s like inside an ICE detention center as the Trump administration steps up enforcement of immigration laws.
Guobadia, 61, spent the last several months living in Dubai and frequently shared photos of his luxurious life on Instagram.
About four months ago, he returned to the U.S. for a hearing in his divorce from RHOA star Porsha Williams. He was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and held until last weekend, when he was deported to his native Nigeria.
In an interview with Us Weekly, published on Friday, June 13, Guobadia said he was taken into custody when he touched down in the U.S. just before the season 16 premiere of RHOA on March 9.
He said “about seven agents with ICE” boarded the plane, escorted him off and “slapped the cuffs on.”
According to the reality star and entrepreneur, the agents asked “a bunch of questions about my business and where I was traveling from, and then they asked me to turn over my devices.”
They seized his laptop, two phones, and took him away.
Guobadia had a history of problems with ICE and was facing deportation when he left the U.S. for the United Arab Emirates.
He tried for years to obtain U.S. citizenship, but it never happened because of his alleged criminal past, including a guilty plea to bank and credit card fraud after a 1987 arrest, court documents showed, previously reported.
But this time, Guobadia believes someone alerted ICE to his travel plans.
“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.
He suggested Williams or someone close to her tipped off authorities, which she denied in a March interview with “The Breakfast Club.” Per Williams, her estranged husband’s detention had been delaying their divorce.
“For him to be locked up, mentally and financially, it doesn’t benefit me,” she said. “Just because you’re going through a divorce doesn’t mean you hate someone. I hate actions, I hate lies, I hate a lot of characteristics, but I love the person, and I would never wish harm on anybody.”
Guobadia spent nearly four months at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, and described the experience as a “nightmare.”
He said he was not allowed to make a phone call after arriving and had no way to contact his family until an officer he described as having “kindness” let him use a phone.
After a few days, people in the facility began to recognize him, and he was placed in “protective custody.”
He was given his own cell, where he spent 23 hours of the day. “I understood why people would kill themselves, but I’m too strong to do that,” he said.
Us Weekly said Guobadia began to break down in the interview as he recalled not knowing when he would be released and the poor conditions at the detention center.
“Some of the glaring things I saw were … the staff was poorly trained, they didn’t have a whole lot of staffing. There was overcrowding, there were people detained, individuals who were sleeping in makeshift beds,” he said. “Those facilities were built to house … about 200 people [per unit], and each cell would house two people, a top and a bottom bunk.”
Just before he was deported, Guobadia said the agents gave him two weeks notice and moved him to a holding cell with a group of others. He said he was denied food for 18 hours.
His interview came as protesters flood streets across the U.S. demanding ICE stop detaining undocumented immigrants after raids at businesses, in neighborhoods, in local jails, and at a shopping center in Catonsville, Maryland.
As for Porsha Williams, 43, she currently appears on season 16 of RHOA.
She filed for divorce in February 2024, after 15 months of marriage to Guobadia. In her filing, she said the marriage was “irretrievably broken.”
On June 11, the media personality won a major victory when a judge ruled that the couple’s prenuptial agreement would be enforced.
The prenup reportedly calls for Guobadia to pay Williams $40,000 per month in alimony for the next 14 to 15 months. She also gets to keep a Rolls-Royce he gifted her. Guobadia will pay her legal fees and Williams has until 2027 to decide whether she wants to keep living in the $7,000,000 pre-marital home they shared, according to All About the Real Housewives.
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