Mekhi Phifer and Malinda Williams appear to have an amazing co-parenting relationship. They seem to get along so well, that most people forget that they were once unhappily married. But the “Divergent” actor says that once him and Malinda put their relationship differences aside, they actually became great friends and even better co-parents.
“I was young, I was like 24 years old and that’s tough being that young in this business, where I was at in this business and being in a tumultuous relationship,” he confessed during a recent interview with Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club.
“You try to do the right thing, me and her have a son together,” he continued. “Being in that kind of relationship and that jump in my career at that age, it was tough. I can’t front arguing at home and going through all of that because we were both young and with both our A-type personalities—but we’re really good peoples now. We’re better off, like we’re happily divorced, we’re better off friends and we’re raising our son together.”
Though all is well now, Mekhi briefly discussed some of the problems that he encountered during his marriage to Malinda—some of which seem to have been the result of him being unfaithful.
“At the time it was crazy. For a lack of a better term, you’re traveling and girls are throwing it at you and sometimes your catching it,” he confessed. “[I wasn’t cheating] the whole time but you know we were only married for less than a year.”
He adds that for a large portion of their marriage, they were living under the same roof, but separately.
“There was a point where because I bought us a house and we were living on opposite sides of the house. We were technically married but you’re going two or three days living in the house and you aren’t even talking to, you talking about walking up and down the stairs past each other and you aren’t even talking. Then you got out in the world and you have your own group of friends and she has her peoples and you just become separate.”
Of course breakups are never easy, even in relationships that we desperately need to break away from, but Mekhi says it was a huge relief once things were officially over.
“I was kind of relived. I had developed this bald spot in the back of my hair because I was stressed and I didn’t even know it was stress. But once we got separated and I didn’t make it hard, I left her with the house and all of that and just left. I left with my clothes and my whip so then I was cool.”
Though he was relieved to call it quits, he believes that the split was a bit more difficult for Malinda, who later did an interview with Honey magazine where she painted him as an adulterer.
“I guess she was still affected by it. She did this whole Honey article.”
Interestingly, despite previously admitting that he may have slept around while out on the road, he insists that there is no proof of him being a cheater because even though he and Malinda were technically still married at the time of his indiscretions, they were broken up.
“There was no proof of that,” he reasoned. “I said we were basically separated, we were only married a year and then we were technically married but we weren’t together. Yeah but there was no proof of that.”
We can totally respect their ability to put their relationship differences aside to be the best possible parents to their child.
Watch Mekhi’s full interview on the next page. Thoughts?
