The self-proclaimed Southern Belle reveals the reason why she and Islam decided to join Marriage Boot Camp.
“I had a lot of good reviews from former castmates that had participated in the show and they said it was really transformative and that it really helped their relationship. As everybody knows, I’m a woman of many talents, but being in strong, romantic relationships has not been my strong suite,” Parks told That Grape Juice. “So, I wanted to improve in that area, and I wanted to make sure that I was giving myself every opportunity to understand myself better in relationships, but also to understand my partner.”
The mother-of-two then shared how she and Medina first met. “He and I met through a dating app. We had actually known each other prior, because Medina was an actor one of Tyler Perry’s productions here in Atlanta for years. And so, we had seen each other around town. But we have a mutual best friend, and he had seen that I was single on a dating app and he had tried to link up with me on the dating app, but I hadn’t responded. So, he spoke to our mutual friend and gave me a call. He said, “Hey, do you know Medina?” I was like, “Yeah”, “He’s been trying to get in touch with you”. From there, I called him, well he actually gave me his number and he called me and we talked for three hours.”
She continued, “And from there I was like, “This might be interesting”, however, he lived in California. That’s a long way, that’s truly bicoastal because I live in Georgia. So we decided that even though there was this distance there’s lots of jobs in Atlanta and also there’s lots of jobs for me in Los Angeles, and we would give it a try. That being said, one of the biggest issues was the distance and sometimes he felt I was not communicating effectively. And I can’t say I’m the best communicator because I’ve got lots of careers and jobs. And so, sometimes I am not as present as I should be in relationships, that has been a problem in the past. So, he picked up on that quite quickly. He thought that we should be physically intimate, sooner than I thought was appropriate for myself.”
Parks also revealed how it was living in the same house with other celebrity couples while trying work on fixing the issues between she and Medina.
“It’s sometimes off-putting, because you’re talking about very personal details about your life, whether it be your sex life or infidelity, just things that are very personal amongst people who are essentially strangers. Prior to the show, Hazel-E and I were friends, and I had no idea she was coming on the show, so that’s someone I had known and we quickly picked up where we had known each other for almost 20 years, so that was awesome,” Phaedra told That Grape Juice. “But other than Hazel, I really didn’t know anyone. I was a huge fan of Kurupt, but I didn’t know him personally. So, being in that house, you had to be very vulnerable and be willing to really open up in front of strangers and talk about very difficult things. I’m very private and that has been an issue for me, but we definitely worked it out. I grew to love my fellow housemates and from being with these ladies and these guys, we’ve really forged a true family within that show. I talk to most of them several times, if not every day of the week.”
When asked if she was open to returning to RHOA, she added, “…I’m actually working on finding love not fighting with my love.”
Photo Credit: Robert Ector, Instagram
