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DeVon Franklin says he refuses to "live in fear and shame" after filing for divorce from Meagan Good. On Thursday, the film producer took to Instagram to speak to his followers about him joining the upcoming season of Lifetime's Married at First Sight as an expert.
Per Essence, Franklin will join the show's regular relationship advisors Dr. Pepper Schwartz and Pastor Calvin Roberson alongside fellow freshman expert Dr. Pia Holec, a celebrated psychotherapist with a specialty in sex and couples therapy. The foursome will spend the new season helping to provide guidance to the couples.
As Franklin shared with his followers, he was approached to join the season before he filed for divorce from Good in December 2021. He explained that after the filing was revealed, the show's production told him "that didn’t matter to them because they still felt like I could help their couples."
"I was going to tell them 'No' because I felt shame and that voice in my head said, 'you’re a failure, how can you help anybody save their marriage when yours didn’t work out,'" he added. "That voice in my head also had me thinking about what would 'people' say? Would 'people' approve or disapprove? And then I had to ask myself: Is this how I’m going to live the rest of my life? In fear about what 'people' say? And who are 'people' anyway? So I went back to the @mafslifetime team and told them YES, I’ll still come. I REFUSE TO LIVE IN FEAR OR SHAME!"
The Live Free: Exceed Your Highest Expectations author went on to share that "something powerful happened" during filming, saying that he was able to use his trials and tribulations to help a couple "successfully sort through their issues."
"A lot of times that voice in our heads is our worst enemy. It tries to talk us out of what God is trying to talk us into," he added. "I was trying to get through this life perfect and without failure, now I’m just living to get through it truthfully and if what I’ve learned about love and relationships can help someone, then I’m here for it."
Franklin filed for divorce from Good on Dec. 21 in an L.A. courthouse. According to legal docs, obtained by ET, the date of separation is listed as Aug. 21, 2021 and the reason he cited for the divorce is "irreconcilable differences." The actress and the Hollywood producer/author got married on June 16, 2012 and have no children together. They met on the set of their 2011 film, Jumping the Broom, and got engaged in May 2012.
In January, Good opened up about the divorce during a Twitter Spaces conversation with xoNecole and the cast from Amazon Prime Video's Harlem. The 40-year-old actress shared how she was handling the divorce process and healing from what she calls the "most painful" experience of her life.
"Throughout life, I've always approached relationships as understanding that at some point, they'll get to the place that they're going to, and then they would be over," she said. "I've always had an attitude of like, 'All right, next chapter. We'll see what's next,' and being OK with that and appreciating what you give to someone and what they give to you and sharing a moment in time and in life that you never get back regardless of how it ends. In my situation right now, it's a little bit different because I thought that that would be the last time that I would be doing that and that I would be doing this with that person forever."
"Not everything makes sense to me right now, but I do trust God overall and I'm excited to see what this next act of life is going to be and what God has in store and that's all I can really do but even in doing that, I do have gratitude and so much joy in my heart for these past 11 years that DeVon and I have been together," Good added. "What he's given into my life and what I was able to give to him, just everything. Every season, every single part of it has been incredible."
Still, even with her optimism for the future and putting her trust "in God, in the process no matter what it is," Good admits that she is still "grieving" her marriage and the bond she shared with Franklin.
"Still grieving, still hurt. It's going to be a long time, but at the end of the day it has made God, even more, my lover and even more my husband, and even brought our relationship to new depths and new heights so I'm in gratitude for that," she said.
Season 15 of Married to Medicine premieres July 6 at 8p/7c on Lifetime.
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