Technically, I’m on vacation. I’ve rented a (cheap) car, and woe is me (insert sarcasm) that there’s no way to connect my iPhone to the stereo to listen to my playlists. I’m forced to listen to the radio, which I rarely do at home.
The talk of Miami’s Hot 105 this week has been the discovery by The Real Housewives of Atlanta’s Kenya Moore that she was unknowingly dating a married man, whom she met via Bravo’s TV show Millionaire Matchmaker. According to Moore, she discovered this after she’d been sharing pics of herself and her new man, James Freeman, on social media. Yikes!
“Unfortunately, I just learned today that the man I met and fell in love with from Millionaire Matchmaker was married a week after the show aired,” Moore posted on Instagram. “I am astounded and devastated to have learned of this news VIA social media as opposed to from him directly.”
A woman, especially a celebrity, being duped by a man is a juicy story, and the radio station’s hosts spun it into a “question of the day,” asking readers when it was appropriate to share pictures of your significant other on social media. (Most popular answer: when you’re engaged or married—and keep the pics and details to a minimum even then.) But I had a different, more pressing question running through my mind: Where was this man’s wife?
It wouldn’t work for me to have my betrothed on a dating show, but I do understand that many of the people who appear on these types of programs are actors or aspiring actors. Maybe the fiancee was cool with him adding a show to his résumé? Fair enough. Technically, you are single until you are married, I guess. But Moore and Freeman continued to date after the wedding, according to Moore. It seems that Moore wasn’t in an open relationship, but was Freeman in an open marriage?
Actually, no, says Jaimi Gregory, Freeman’s wife. She offered RadarOnline a different timeline than Moore’s, saying that her now-husband’s appearance on Millionaire Matchmaker was filmed in September, before Gregory met him in December. Gregory and Freeman became engaged in March and were married a month later. Gregory says that her husband “forgot” about having taped the show until commercials began airing.
So let me get this straight: He forgot about that time when—for at least three days, for multiple hours each of those days—he hung out with a celebrity woman on a show about a celebrity matchmaker. And he conveniently forgot about the multiple, big cameras that were in his face as well as the lights. Then this same forgetful man also met a woman online and married her within four months? I mean, some people do know when they know, but does a man this “forgetful” fall into that category?
Anyway, Gregory says that her husband only went on “two or three dates” with Moore after the show aired. “He told me they just kissed and nothing else. He said she just wasn’t the right person for him, but he wished her the best.”
She added that Moore had been contacting her husband recently and he told her "that he had met someone and fell in love so it wasn’t appropriate for him to talk with her anymore,” according to Gregory.
I’m unclear why he didn’t say, “I’m married.” It’s the more direct explanation, and it’s fewer words. Everyone understands “I’m married.” “I met someone … ” isn’t a definitive claim to being off the market.
Gregory says that Moore knew Freeman was “seeing somebody.” She added, “He was very clear with his boundaries. … This was obviously a publicity stunt. I know it was.”
I don’t know what this is, exactly. But I know it isn’t clear. Not when, by his own wife’s account, a married man won’t just say, “I’m married.” Not when a wife is describing her relationship with her new husband as “seeing somebody,” as if he’s her new boo.
I also know that neither of these versions of what happened with this married man, his wife and his allegedly unknowing girlfriend makes any sense. Freeman’s “I forgot” story is plain fishy. And combined with “I just can’t say ‘married’ for anything”? I call shenanigans on this player.
Both of these women could be telling their version of the “truth” that Freeman told or led them to believe. But is any of it what actually happened? I doubt it, but only Freeman knows, and for now, unfortunately, he isn’t talking.
Demetria Lucas D’Oyley is a contributing editor at The Root, a life coach and the author of Don’t Waste Your Pretty: The Go-to Guide for Making Smarter Decisions in Life & Love as well as A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life. Follow her on Twitter.