Phaedra Parks dating CT Tamburello is officially confirmed, and the confirmation came from Phaedra herself on Friday morning.
The “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star was on Jeff Lewis Live on SiriusXM alongside Salt-N-Pepa when Lewis brought up the fact that she is in Los Angeles this weekend for the Creative Arts Emmys with CT. He asked whether the date was platonic. She said, “It’s not.”
Lewis pushed. Had she been out with him before? Yes. How many times? She was not giving that up. “I’ve got to save it for the world,” she said, before confirming that CT is presenting at the ceremony and she is his date.
Here is the part that makes the whole segment. CT was standing right outside the studio the entire time. Lewis pointed it out on air, saying he could confirm the relationship himself because he could see the man through the glass. While Phaedra was inside dodging questions about how many dates they have been on, CT was on his Instagram Story calling her his bae, then posting a video of himself peeking in on her interview with Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” playing over it.She would not put a start date on the relationship. What she did say is that it has been going on for a while, and that it got going sometime after her last trip to Los Angeles. He lives on the East Coast. She flew into LA on September 2, he came in on September 3, and the two of them are flying back to New York together once the Emmys are over.
The Phaedra Parks dating confirmation lands after weeks of the two of them running the flirtation completely in public. On August 9, CT posted a photo of Phaedra from the “RHOA” season 17 reunion and asked if anybody wanted to put in a good word for him, since he was still looking for a plus one for the Emmys. Phaedra replied that she was already his. He answered with a GIF of Will Smith fainting onto a couch. She called it a date. In the weeks after, she called him her man on Instagram and described him as claimed.
None of this came out of nowhere. Phaedra and CT met filming the second season of “The Traitors” in 2023, and by the time the show aired in early 2024, viewers had already clocked the chemistry between them. CT won that season alongside Trishelle Cannatella. He was also in the middle of a divorce at the time from Lilianet Solares, whom he married in 2018 and officially separated from in November 2023, and he said back then that nothing romantic happened between him and Phaedra during production. He later dated Catalina White.
Phaedra, for her part, was not hiding much even then. Talking to Extra in March 2024 after the season wrapped, she said she would love to work with CT again and described him as a gentleman and salt of the earth. Phaedra is 52. CT is 46. He has been on television since “The Real World” in 2003 and built a whole career on “The Challenge,” where he is one of the most decorated competitors the franchise has produced. Phaedra has been a Bravo fixture since 2010, left “RHOA” in 2017, and came back into the mainstream through The Traitors before returning to the Housewives universe.
Whether the two of them walk the carpet together this weekend is the next thing to watch. She confirmed the relationship, but she made it clear she is holding the details, and the way both of them have handled the last month suggests neither is in a rush to hand anything over for free.
