It’s been over two years since Phaedra Parks pulled the plug on her five-year marriage to Apollo Nida, but you won’t catch the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star speaking poorly about the father of her two kids.
“At the end of the day, Apollo is the children’s father. And so I want them to be able to make their own opinions about who he is as a father,” Parks told People about Nida, who is behind bars on fraud charges.
After tying the knot in 2009, Parks and Nida welcomed son Ayden in May 2010 and Dylan in May 2013. A rep for Parks confirmed their plans to divorce the following October, after Nida was convicted on federal fraud charges. He began serving his eight-year prison sentence in Fall 2014.
“I respect my children too much,” Parks, 43, shared. “I don’t want them to look back on television, tabloids or something I said that will make them feel like their father was not a great father. I’m always doing things to err on the side of not saying anything if I can’t say anything that’s not nice about him.”
Parks also explained why she chose not to involve her cast mates in the burgeoning divorce drama.
“None of them had been supportive throughout the process,” she said. “So I knew their questions weren’t coming from a place of support — it was from a place of being nosy, wanting to know what was going on with my marriage and the divorce.”
This March, a judge put the couple’s divorce on hold after it was discovered the latter’s name had been misspelled on the documents. Nida, 38, also reportedly wasn’t informed the divorce had been close to being finalized.
“The judge overturned it, so I’m forging forward to do whatever I need to do to resolve this,” Parks said.
Despite the setback, Parks’ primary concern remains her children.
“We’ve got two beautiful sons and my main objective is to make sure that they’re stable and happy and healthy. And that they have opportunities to do so and live with dignity.”