Evelyn Lozada‘s whirlwind relationship with Lavon Lewis has come to an end.
The Basketball Wives star, 47, told Us Weekly on Thursday, October 19, that she and Lewis, 42, have officially called it quits. The pair got engaged in December 2022 after falling in love on the Peacock dating show Queen’s Court, which aired on the streamer in March.
“Things went so fast. Six months later we were engaged, and I just felt a little bit of a disconnect. And the distance he lives in Atlanta, that was another thing that was really, really difficult,” Lozada told Us while promoting Basketball Wives. “He has a son that is, I believe, in his first year of high school or going to high school. It was a lot of moving parts and it just started becoming difficult, and I was just like, ‘I don’t want to keep this going just for the world.’”
Lozada went on to share that they both believed parting ways was “the right thing to do,” adding, “I’m just happy that we’re able to just be mature and friends.”
According to the reality star, fans will see their breakup unfold on season 11 of Basketball Wives, which premiered on VH1 earlier this month. “Last episode, I was crying with Shaunie [O’Neal] at her event because that was the beginning of the end of my relationship with him,” she shared. “We’re really good friends. We still work together.”
Planning the pair’s wedding was something Lozada said gave her “anxiety,” largely because of her short marriage to Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson. She explained: “When I was married before, I was a newlywed and a divorcée at the same time. I divorced 42 days later. So, I didn’t know that I was going to have anxiety about getting married again.” (She was briefly married to former NFL star, 45, in 2012. The two divorced that same year after Johnson was arrested for a domestic violence incident with Lozada)
Lozada continued: “I feel like it’s deep-rooted. I feel, like, definitely connected to that incident, that marriage, which I’ve done therapy for. But now, it’s kind of like I’m digging this back up, the whole wedding. And that was hard. It was a difficult time for me. I got married on [the] 4th of July, and by the time August came, I was already filing for divorce.”
She also noted that Queen’s Court’s short six-week filming schedule didn’t help her and Lewis build a strong relationship foundation. “Everything’s going fast,” she told Us. “You’re asking 1,000,001 questions when you’re dating these different guys on the show. And we tried to spend as much time as we could. He would travel here to L.A. at least once a month.”
At the end of the day, Lozada stated that if their romance “doesn’t feel a hundred percent, it just doesn’t feel a hundred percent.” She added: “[He] and I are from two different places. I’m from the Bronx, New York. He’s from Alabama. So, there was a little disconnect there too.”
Despite the breakup, Lozada harbors no hard feelings toward her former fiancé. “I hope he finds an amazing woman. I’ll be at his wedding. He is a great person,” she told Us. “I’m just happy that he’s not bitter or we’re not in a negative space. I feel like all breakups don’t have to end up like that.”
New episodes of Basketball Wives air on VH1 Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Leanne Aciz Stanton
