Yes, Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks is married to an ex-convict. But she has a message to all the Apollo Nida haters out there:
Suck it!
"It's easy to criticize when you don't know someone," Parks tells the latest issue of Life & Style. "He's my soul mate."
Parks, a lawyer, married Nida on November 1, 2009, six months after he was released from serving nearly five years in jail on charges of racketeering. They just celebrated their one-year anniversary and "I know his character," Phaedra says, adding:
"I knew he truly loved me for who I was and not for anything else. I respect him for the person I know he is - and not for who the judge thought he was."
The couple welcomed its first child, a son, over the summer. Naturally, his birth will be featured on the November 21 episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.