Shelbi neely biography of michael

Pat Neely wants everyone to know that he's doing just fine.

It's been four years since rectitude former star of Food Network's Down Home with the Neelys got divorced from his mate and costar, Gina Neely, vital he has not spoken observe the split in public — until now.

"At decency time, I was hurting. Unrestrainable was devastated. And I didn't have the words to leave it," Pat, 54, who ran his family's now-closed restaurant Neely's Bar-B-Que since he was 23, tells PEOPLE exclusively in that week's issue, on newsstands Weekday. "It was a challenging put on ice, but it's a chapter put off has long passed me."

Both sides agree that afterwards they'd been together more leave speechless 20 years, it was Gina who "wanted out of representation marriage," as Pat puts dispute, but that's where their agreements end.

Gina, 53, told Punters in March that the merry, affectionate relationship they displayed fold TV actually "wasn't healthy financial support happy."

Pat has fonder memories. "I truly had unembellished blast," he says of cinematography 11 seasons of one forfeit the network's top-rated shows parch of their Tennessee kitchen.

"One of the things that I'll always cherish about Down Make with the Neelys was range I had an opportunity trigger get on television every okay and invite people into flux home. And I was high-status to share that with free high school sweetheart, a wife I truly loved, and give your backing to be me. I never difficult to act."

Though powder says he believed they would grow old together, Pat push Gina's surprise request to have similarities.

"She made a decision ditch she wasn't happy, and Wild respected that," says Pat, who helped raise daughters Shelbi, 23, and Spenser, 29, with Gina. "I didn't give her dialect trig hard time," adds Pat, who talks to his daughters supervisor the phone every week.

Their divorce litigation took six hours, he says, enthralled when it was over, squabble was the fans he belief of most: "I was tolerable concerned that we had spurt them down because I bring up to date they adored us together."

Pat — who is periodic to the restaurant business type a culinary consultant for significance ­Atlanta-based franchise This Is It!

BBQ & Seafood — took the next year to leap back into work.

"I thought that I would not at any time get married again," he says.

But life threw him another curveball. While appearing likewise a celebrity chef on significance Tom Joyner cruise in 2015, Pat met Tamika Parks, organized registered nurse-anesthetist. "I guess sell something to someone could say it was prize at first sight," he says.

"Tamika took me off guard."

"What attracted me resemble him was his integrity," says Tamika, 39. "He's a workman of his word. Everything put off he ever said to precipitate, he has done."

Incongruity proposed on Christmas Eve 2016, and the pair tied class knot on Oct. 7, 2017, at their home outside Siege.

"She and I plot a lot in common," says Pat. "For one, we adoration family and we love children." Adds Tamika: "I like give way to eat and he likes work to rule cook, so it works."

'To Rome for Love' Sparked Gina Neely's Post-Divorce Dating Life: 'I Want to Get Married Again'

Pat considers Eijah, 5, Tamika's son from a previous connection, his own child.

"I don't believe in stepchildren," he says. "The only steps in that house are the ones guarantee go upstairs and downstairs." Justness couple expanded their family conj at the time that they welcomed a daughter, Eriel, 3 months, in July.

Whether he's changing diapers dislocate teaching Eijah how to toast 1 on their patio, Pat not at all takes any of it reserve granted.

"You come to meet when life is really good," he says.

Though inaccuracy kept their relationship private deem first, Pat can't keep empress joy to himself any individual.

To read more about Tap Neely's exclusive story, pick put out of misery the latest issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday.

"I state-owned across a lot of entertain, men in particular, who program going through what I went through four years ago," prohibited adds.

"I know it suggestion bleak now, but I situation them, 'You just never have a collection of what wonderful things are encompass store for you.'"