And just like that, it’s over for Porsha Williams and Simon Guobadia.
In an exclusive obtained by PEOPLE, the reality TV personality filed for divorce from the businessman after a little over one year of marriage. The news came after they obtained court documents filed by the star.
It also comes as there have been stories spreading online about Guobadia’s past, with bank and credit card fraud connected to his early years in the country in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Guoboadia seemingly responded to the resurfaced information with a photo of himself smiling along with the caption, “I dey kampe, no shaky.” In Nigerian pidgin, that basically means one is fine and nothing can shake them.
That said, a source told the publication that the split is “unrelated to recent allegations involving Simon’s past” and is an “ongoing matter.”
The couple, who recently looked head over heels in love as they celebrated their one-year anniversary last November, wed in 2022 with both an elaborate native ceremony and an even bigger traditional white wedding.
This breakup seems abrupt, but one never knows what people are really dealing with behind the scenes. Get the deets on their road to this point in our relationship timeline.
In 2020, Porsha Williams first met Simon Guobadia while filming Season 13 of Real Housewives of Atlanta. At the time, he was married to a friend of the show, Falynn Pina.
As Guobadia and Williams have stated, they didn’t start giving each other the eye until about 2021. Early that year, he and Pina broke up, and by spring, he and Williams were an item. It came about after the two connected over his divorce news when he sent her a DM. “I actually told him, like, ‘I’m sorry for your divorce’ and all of that because I know what that feels like,” she told Andy Cohen that year. “I know what it feels like to go through betrayal and hurt.”
Shortly after they started dating, which was news to the public, Guobadia proposed to the RHOA star. The engagement was confirmed in May of 2021. Speculation that they were getting married started after he was photographed hanging with her and her former fiancé, Dennis McKinley, for Mother’s Day. At the time, McKinley commented on one of those photos with, “Congrats P! Cheers to your next chapter! Happy Mother’s Day.”
After the engagement news became public, Williams spoke out as people jumped to the conclusion that she took Guobadia from Pina, which would have been especially unseemly since they worked together on RHOA (and she was in the couple’s home at one point). She said that wasn’t the case, and that after a month of dating, they wanted to be together for good. She acknowledged things happened fast but made it clear that she was genuinely happy. “For all of you that need facts, I get the optics but Simon filed for divorce from a previous marriage in January. I had nothing to do with their divorce filing. That’s between the two of them,” she wrote. “Falynn and I are not friends, and Simon’s divorce has been settled. Our relationship is a positive, loving step forward in everybody’s lives.”
In a big step, in the fall of 2021, the couple made a very important trip to his homeland, traveling to Benin City in the Southern part of Nigeria. She was welcomed and basked in all the cultural experiences. “My first time in Nigeria and I love it already,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.
By November of 2022, after plenty of talk about fifty-eleven wedding ceremonies planned and trips to Nigeria, Williams and Guobadia tied the knot in two ceremonies on Nov. 26 and 27, doing so with a native ceremony honoring his Edo culture, and then an American wedding on the next day that was a star-studded event.
While blending in with Williams’s extended family was not the easiest task based on her RHOA spinoff on Bravo, Porsha’s Family Matters, the couple had no problem bringing their children together. The blended family traveled the world, including Costa Rica and Hawaii. She has daughter Pilar from her relationship with Dennis McKinley, while Guobadia had five of his own — none with ex-wife Falynn Pina.
As they marked one year of marriage, the couple celebrated in a unique way: They bought each other luxurious diamond rings. She received an emerald cut diamond while he got a fancy new band. It isn’t the first time she put a ring on it, as she bought him an engagement ring from Tiffany & Co., which created quite the convo online back in 2021.
Despite a lovey-dovey display, Williams decided to pull the plug on her marriage after 15 months. While we don’t know what caused the breakup, we’ll likely get the scoop soon as she recently announced her return to the Real Housewives of Atlanta for Season 16 after leaving the show to focus on love and family with Guobadia in 2021.
