Kandi Burruss was caught just as off guard as her fans when her ex appeared in Real Housewives of Atlanta's Season 9 teaser.
"It was just kind of shocking to me that he decided to come on the show because I'm like, 'You want us to put our personal business on TV?'" she told E! News with a laugh.
As the parents of 14-year-old Riley Burruss, the reality star and her ex-boyfriend Russell Spencer have a child tying them together, but not much else. "Riley's dad and I—we never co-parented. He never was involved," she explained. "We would hear from him for a little while then you wouldn't hear from him again for like a year, two years then he'll call again, 'Oh, how is she doing?' then you wouldn't hear from him...that has been the situation her whole life."
As such, Burruss wanted to keep that family dynamic out of the limelight as Riley grew up. "That was not anything that I ever wanted to exploit and, just because our situation is that way, I don't want to put him on blast or anything like that," she told E! News.
The singer has since moved on by marrying Todd Tucker in 2014 and giving birth to their son Ace in January, but it seems her past has caught up to her present in the Bravo series' upcoming season.
In the two minute teaser trailer for the show, Kandi is seen saying, "Riley is old enough to say whether she wants to have a relationship with her dad."
Meanwhile, with the help of her husband of two years, Burruss is busy potty training and teaching her toddler how to walk—a son she told E! was "a blessing for a new beginning."
The Real Housewives of Atlanta premieres Sunday, Nov. 6 on Bravo.
(E! and Bravo are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)