Claudia Jordan Opened Up About Divorce on 'RHOA'

While she's not the most popular among fans for a multitude of reasons, Real Housewives of Atlanta's Claudia Jordan did a lot to redeem herself in my opinion in the most recent episode by reaching out to Phaedra and opening up about her failed relationship. In that moment every fan paused for a second — wait, who was Claudia Jordan married to? She's such the quintessential single girl in Atlanta that it's easy to forget that she actually used to be married to Datari Turner, a producer in film and reality television. First of all, that show of vulnerability was incredibly brave for reality television, where Bravo viewers will no doubt pull up everything about it (myself included, obviously). And she frankly talked about it in such a way that didn't glamorize or hide how hard it was, in order to show Phaedra that even a hard experience with divorce can be overcome.

Phaedra didn't open all the way back up to Claudia, but we've seen how cagey she's been lately about the end of the relationship, and she hasn't even been as close to Kandi, one of her best friends, because of Apollo-related drama. It's made her very isolated, and as Cynthia said in one of her talking heads, in five years, she's never seen Phaedra open up like that.

But Claudia was very open, discussing that her marriage was an impulsive decision that went bad very quickly. Claudia has discussed it before to TMZ, albeit briefly. According to a piece they wrote about the end of the marriage, Claudia cited "fraud" in her annulment papers. They went on to speculate that Turner may have cheated on her and he's known as a player. Another gossip site, Rhymes With Snitch (and we're talking real unconfirmed gossip here, not People Magazine) speculated that Datari had been in a very long relationship that he didn't break off before marrying Claudia.

However, Datari has not spoken up about the marriage before. According to what Claudia just said on the episode, his family did not want to dissolve the marriage, citing religion as a reason why they wanted to maintain it. Whether it's that or infidelity, Claudia's choice to air her past like that is a brave move of friendship.

Image: Giphy