This was posted Monday, April 3, 2017 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Next week is season 9's finale before the reunion shows and it's set to be a doozy. That big Chateau Sheree "housewarming party" that got her in trouble last fall with her neighbors is finally airing and both NeNe Leakes and Kim Zolciak will be in the same room at the same time on the show for the first time since season five.
When Kandi Burruss is uncomfortable or perplexed, she makes funky, funny faces. Sunday night's penultimate season 9 episode was a tour de force of Kandi facial ammunition when Apollo Nida's fiance Sherien Almufti showed up at her Old Lady Gang restaurant party.
Kandi would make the worst poker player ever.
Here is just a sampling as she interacted with Sherien during last night's show:
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Kandi said this entire situation was awkward because she didn't invite Sherien to her party and she just showed up out of nowhere.
Sherien said she was there in Apollo's place. He appreciated the support of Kandi and her husband Todd Tucker throughout this ordeal - even at the cost of her friendship with Phaedra Parks. (Apollo is in federal prison for bank and identity fraud and was sentenced to eight years.)
She said she was originally friends with Apollo starting in 2013 but things heated up once he got into prison in 2014. She was not clear whether they got intimate before he entered prison. She did say she sees him often because his prison Fort Dix is only 40 minutes from her residence in New Jersey.
To make matters more weird, Sherien got Apollo on the phone from prison. Kandi expressed her discomfort to him. "It makes me seem like I'm trying to be messy," she told him.
He said Sherien has nothing to do with Phaedra. "That's my baby," Apollo said.
He then said they were in process of getting divorced, which confused the crowd because Phaedra had said it was finalized. As we now know, a judge had finalized her divorce papers but she hadn't properly notified him of the final hearing so last week, that divorce judgment was thrown out and they have to start all over again. Yes, messy indeed!
So who is Sherien anyway?
She identifies herself as a realtor, a real estate investor and property manager on her Instagram page.
She told Us magazine they initially bonded as friends talking about real estate. She didn't say specifically how they crossed paths in the first place.
She explained to the magazine how they bonded as he left for prison:
"I think the night we took him away [to prison] I felt something completely different," she told Us. "Like, we've experienced something, you know. He cried on my shoulder. We held [each other] for a while. I just let him know — I told him as a friend — 'I'm gonna be there for you.' See, he was there for me, as well. … So I, in return as a friend first, before anything else, I told him I was gonna be there for him. Because I watched how a lot of people kind of just turned their backs on him."
She said they only can kiss in prison, nothing more. She insisted they didn't do anything before hand. She said he proposed to her in November. She showed on Instagram a paper ring he created. She later wore a nicer ring and posted that on Instagram as well.
Almufti is previously married. Her ex Derrick Copes told RadarOnline he has no issue with her relationship with Apollo but doesn't like that she will bring their eight-year-old daughter there.
