RHOA's Shamari DeVoe Started an Open Marriage with Husband to Date a Woman: 'I Was Bi-Curious'

The Real Housewives of Atlanta‘s newest Housewife, Shamari DeVoe, didn’t waste any time spilling secrets about her relationship.

On Sunday’s all-new episode — only the second episode on which she’s appeared — the Blaque singer revealed that she once initiated an open marriage with husband Ronnie DeVoe (of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe fame) so that she could experiment with another woman.

“We were on the brink of divorce,” Shamari, 38, explained. “We were going through some really bad times and there was a girl that I was interested in and I wanted to do something different. I was bi-curious!”

Shamari and Ronnie, 51, wed in 2006 and have been together for 17 years since first meeting during the Janet Jackson Icon Awards in 2001. Their open relationship only lasted a year and a half, Shamari told castmates NeNe Leakes, Kandi Burruss, Cynthia Bailey, Porsha Williams and Eva Marcille (among others) as the ladies gathered at Bailey’s house for a Fourth of July BBQ.

“It was a point where he could do his thing and I could do mine,” she said. “Y’all know each other and are dating other people and it’s okay. It’s not cheating.”

Of course, Shamari’s fellow Atlanta Housewives had questions — specifically whether Shamari’s extra-marital relationships were primarily emotional or sexual (they were sexual, Shamari said in other words).

“Do you tell him like, ‘I’m going to have sex tonight?’ ” Leakes asked.

“After you guys do it, do you tell each other who it was?” wondered Bailey.

“Would you run into these people and be like, ‘I had sex with your wife yesterday’?” Marcille inquired.

Shamari answered all questions with a resounding yes. “There was nothing off limits,” she said. “We could do anything. It was awesome.”

Only one thing wasn’t allowed: Shamari couldn’t be with another man — something that didn’t bother her.

“As long as I was able to go about in my bi-curious ways than I was cool with that,” Shamari said. “I didn’t want to be with another man because I had my husband.”

Throughout the course of their open relationship, Shamari said she ended up sleeping with two women, while Ronnie “probably slept with about 10.”

Eventually, Shamari pulled the plug on their open relationship and made sure it went back to the way it was before. “I started the open relationship and I stopped the open relationship,” she said. “I realized the grass wasn’t greener on the other side.”

And it hasn’t appeared to affect their relationship at all. Last week, Shamari called the “Candy Girl” and “Poison” hitmaker “a legend.”

“He is everything to the world,” she added. “A lot of people have come up to me and been like, ‘Oh my God, you know you’re married to my husband.’ And it’s like, ‘No baby, I’m not married to your husband, I’m married to my husband. The legend.”

The Real Housewives of Atlanta airs Sundays (8 p.m. ET) on Bravo.

from PEOPLE.com https://ift.tt/2DVNm1v