Kandi Burruss faces the motherhood double standard in divorce

Just days after announcing her decision to divorce her husband Todd Tucker, former Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kandi Burruss is finding herself in an increasingly tense divorce. On November 21, she announced the split in a statement to PEOPLE, saying:

“After deep thought and a lot of prayer, I’ve made the decision to move forward with a divorce. This is a difficult and emotional time, but my focus remains on protecting my peace, being the best mother I can be, and co-parenting with love and respect.”

But despite the initial claim that she wanted this to be loving and respectful, things are heating up with bombshells dropping daily since her announcement, and the rumour mill is in full swing. Like, ‘he got his mistress pregnant’ full swing. And with Todd most recently putting up a tough fight to challenge the couple’s prenup, which he signed shortly before their wedding in 2014, Kandi is pulling out all the stops to let Todd know that his tactics are no match for her, including one pretty niche resource that not everyone has access to in a divorce - old Bravo footage from her wedding special.

It's a genius move, truly. I mean, leveraging the footage from her spinoff on the network that caught the tense moments leading up to them tying the knot – and most importantly, the very moment he signed the prenup he is now saying he was pressured into signing? It’s got to be the biggest checkmate there is. And according to feedback from fans – and lawyers - who know the couple’s love story, it could be the key to ensuring she gets exactly what she’s after in the split, or to at least block him from getting what’s not his.

Longtime fans of the show will recall the early beginnings of this relationship – namely due to the fact that balancing the tension between her mom, Mama Joyce, and Todd became a full-on storyline for Kandi. Mama Joyce was staunchly opposed to their union, mostly because she did not believe the pair was compatible economically. She was very vocal about her concerns that Todd would take financial advantage of her and she advocated for Kandi to ensure Todd signed a prenup prior to marriage – since Kandi obviously wasn’t taking her first piece of advice, which was to not marry him. 

In fairness, Mama Joyce’s concerns weren’t entirely unfounded. At that point in her life, Kandi had a hugely successful career in music. She started out as a member of the iconic 1990s R&B girl group Xscape and had earned a Grammy for her work with artists like TLC and Destiny’s Child. She was the mastermind behind hits like “No Scrubs”, “Bills, Bills, Bills”, “There You Go” and though it would come long after meeting Todd, she earned a co-writing credit on Ed Sheeran’s hit “Shape of You”. 

So it’s safe to say that at the time they met, she was a huge deal. Todd, on the other hand, well, he dabbled in production and production management and actually met Kandi on the set of a show they were filming in South Africa. So Mama Joyce’s concerns about them not quite being on the same financial level were valid.

Kandi would spend the next decade of her life playing peacekeeper between the two of them, while Todd defended himself and his intentions in dating her daughter. Ultimately, they got engaged, much to the dismay of Mama Joyce, and a prenup became a huge point of contention for them. I think that’s the reason Bravo pitched the idea of a wedding special, which was entitled Kandi’s Wedding, by the way, no mention of Todd whatsoever. And the special was a hit. Who could forget the famous scene of Todd storming out of his own rehearsal dinner, calling the prenup ‘some bullsh-t’. 

But that visceral reaction we saw was in response to two of the more contentious clauses in the document. The first being that he needed to leave the home within 30 days if the couple separated. And the second was that he would receive nothing if Kandi died during their marriage. Ouch. 

All of this created so much doubt about whether Todd would not only sign the prenup, but go through with the wedding since he had long been complaining about feeling emasculated and as if his intentions, which he was adamant were genuine, were being questioned. But Kandi engaged with her legal team to ensure her assets were protected and they got that prenup signed.

But the circumstances of how the prenup got signed is precisely what Todd is challenging. In legal documents, Todd says he signed the prenup ‘under duress’ and is calling for the enforceability of the document to be investigated. In late November, days after Kandi filed her divorce petition, Todd responded, admitting that while he did sign the prenup, he did it mere hours before the wedding and was ‘pressured’ into signing it without his attorneys and legal team being present. 

But he did, in fact, sign it, and in doing so, gave up his rights to all alimony and community property. And moreover, as we can see in this clip, he did this on camera, in front of several witnesses, and vocalized that he was not being forced to sign the prenup. 

“The parties journey to executing an enforceable prenuptial agreement was filmed and broadcast on Bravo television network with the knowledge and consent of both Burruss and Tucker,” Kandi’s lawyers stated in response to Todd’s claims.

Shortly after tying the knot, Kandi once again vocalized the importance of famous women doing what they need to do to protect themselves, saying:

“I’m not paying spousal support, oh no,” she said, according to The Grio. “I’m seeing too much going on right now. Halle Berry’s paying $20,000 a month in child support, and then poor Sherri [Shepherd], she had a prenup and now [her husband] is coming after her. They’ve only been married a few years. Are you kidding me?”

All of this brings to mind what Bethenny Frankel was talking about last year on her podcast when she shared some reflections from her own divorce, which she dubbed ‘the worst divorce in history, short of physical abuse’. I wrote about that here. In her case and in Kandi’s, we see men who pale in comparison to the wealth of the women they pursued. These men deliberately went after reality TV stars. And in both cases, it started off great, both men started off charming, but things took an ugly turn.

It's not anything unlike your typical divorce, but we are dealing with women who have more wealth than your average person, and moreover, more wealth than your average man, which could explain the conviction Kandi had, even back then before her restaurants and before the businesses she would start during her marriage, in protecting her assets. 

Up until a few days ago, it appeared to be that they were, by all measures, trying to maintain a certain level of respect for one another despite challenging each other on what they each want to see from the divorce. In a recent Thanksgiving recap, Kandi made it clear to her 10 million followers that Todd was not only invited, but came and simply left before the photo was taken. 

“He was not left out or anything like that,” she assured fans.

And in his filings, Todd repeatedly praises Kandi’s parenting, and speaks optimistically about the way forward for their family. But with his most recent claims being that her out-of-state work obligations, which most likely allude to her current and upcoming acting gigs, mean that he is better-suited to be awarded primary custody, it wouldn’t surprise me if this got real ugly, real fast. 

Fans are speculating whether he is seeking primary custody as a means of trying to secure child support or other financial benefits. This drives home the idea that when women are career-driven, there’s a price to pay because our careers can be weaponized against us in relation to how we parent and our capacity to be present mothers. But had the shoe been on the other foot and it was her with less money, there would be men on podcasts talking about how this was her plan all along and calling her a gold digger. We just can’t win, can we? 

As someone who's navigated the throes, not necessarily of a legal divorce, thankfully, but of trying to find a way forward while also navigating the complexities of a separation where a child or children are involved, no money in the world could save these two from the challenge they’re facing. And as we see with celebrity splits, sometimes more money means more complications. 

But I commend Kandi on having the foresight to know that this day could come and ensuring that at least from a financial perspective, she was prepared for it. We can’t always protect ourselves from heartbreak. But we can protect our assets. And I imagine that’s a much-needed comfort for her in the midst of the pain she’s navigating.