Eva Marcille has the ultimate blended family, and she is soaking up the love her husband Michael Sterling has for her daughter, Marley Rae — even if it means shading her ex-boyfriend.
In a preview for the upcoming 11th season of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” Marcille has a family photo shoot with her then-fiancé, their infant son Michael Sterling Jr., and the model’s 4-year-old. Speaking to the bond between Marley, whose father is rapper and actor Kevin McCall, Marcille asks her daughter if she wants to sit on Sterling’s lap for the picture. He playfully works some reverse psychology on Marley, telling her not to do so.
“Mike’s relationship with Marley is literally beyond words,” Marcille explains in a confessional. “He came in when she was 1-year-old and is the only dad that Marley knows.
“Michael brings love and stability and protection,” the star adds. “And it’s every single thing you would want a man to bring to your child.”
But this isn’t the first time Marcille has made this assertion. After Marley’s dad publicly disowned his daughter, the “America’s Next Top Model” winner declared Sterling was her father, not McCall.
“We don’t have a relationship,” Marcille told Essence in January. “He’s blocked on all my social media. I have full custody of my daughter and her dad is Michael Sterling, so he is a blast from the past and a memory.”
McCall has famously had discord with Marcille and after the “RHOA” star posted a photo of Marley with Sterling on her Instagram account in 2017, he relinquished the girl completely.
“If you want her so bad, you can have her,” he wrote on his IG account that December. “I’m deleting all memories of her. I’m not about to play any more games or participate in society’s joke of a child program, [You’re] dead to me.”