Who Is ‘RHOA’ Star Porsha Williams’ Girlfriend? Meet Patrice ‘Sway’ McKinney
What To Know
- The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porsha Williams hard-launched her relationship with a woman in 2025.
- Her girlfriend is Patrice “Sway” McKinney, who is a “salon suite mentor.”
- It’s Williams’ first relationship since her divorce from Simon Guobadia.
The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip is headed to Altanta for the upcoming August 30 episode. That means the group will be on Porsha Williams‘ turf.
Throughout the season so far, The Real Housewives of Atlanta star has been sharing tidbits of information about her new relationship with Patrice “Sway” McKinney. The women hard-launched their relationship in November 2025 following Williams’ divorce from Simon Guobadia.
“Happiest Birthday @sway_thepro Hope this year continues to bring you everything you want and more! Can’t wait to act up saturday!” Williams captioned her November 28 Instagram carousel, which gave fans a few other glimpses into their relationship.
So, who is Patrice “Sway” McKinney, the woman who’s captured Williams’ heart? Keep reading for everything we know.
Who is Porsha Williams’ girlfriend?
In her Instagram bio, Patrice “Sway” McKinney describes herself as the “#1 Salon Suite Mentor” with over 12 years of experience. She turned down a professional basketball career to be an entrepreneur, according to a Franchise Dictionary Magazine. She moved to Atlanta in 2008 to pursue a career in barbering.
“In 2013, I received my Master Barber-Stylist license, and the following year I opened my first salon with 6 chairs,” she told Shoutout Atlanta in 2021. “In 2016, I finally made my dream a reality, and I invested into my first salon suite business with a partner. After a couple of years, I decided that it was time to start my own brand, Encore Salon Suites.” She now helps others open profitable salon businesses.
In the same interview, McKinney also praised her then-fiancée, Shawntelle.
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How did Porsha Williams meet her girlfriend?
Williams and McKinney first connected over Instagram in 2017, eight years before they started dating. “I had seen her page and liked a couple of things, you know how you give a like here, and that,” Williams told Entertainment Tonight. “So we had a little communication on Instagram over eight years ago.”
They ended up losing touch, and McKinney eventually got a new Instagram account, which Williams didn’t even recognize. “Her page looked totally different, so I didn’t connect the two, but I was still connected to her and her spirit, so I was like, ‘Boom.’ Click another like. You know what I mean?” she explained.
That led to some DMs back and forth before they met up for drinks with Williams’ sister. Their anniversary is on August 22, 2025, per a one-year anniversary post from Williams.
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However, in October 2025, Williams revealed at Culture Con that she was casually seeing both a man and a woman. “They’re asking me questions, they’re not letting me walk over them, they aren’t just doing whatever they need to do to get into the relationship, and so I’m not feeling safe enough to open up yet,” she explained. “And so what I have to do is realize, if you want something different, you have to also be different. I have to soften up a bit.”
What is Porsha Williams’ relationship history?
That Culture Con conversation was the first time that Williams had ever mentioned having a romantic relationship with a woman. She dropped this news on the heels of her split with Guobadia, whom she filed for divorce from in February 2024 after just a little over a year of marriage. The reality star fell for Guobadia in April 2021, and a short while later, he shared the news of their engagement. Guobadia reached out to Williams after his own divorce from RHOA Season 13’s Falynn Pina, Williams noted on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.
She told People that Guobadia wasn’t being honest about his legal status, which caused him to be detained by ICE and deported back to Nigeria. “I did love him,” she said to People a few months later. “But he only gave me part of him to love. There was another part of him that he didn’t let me in on. So I don’t know that person. And that person took over in the end.”
They finalized their divorce in June 2025, and afterward, Williams decided to take a break from dating. “I’m going to do it different this time,” she explained to People. “I’m going to be alone until I’m whole. And then when I’m whole, then I will open myself back up so I don’t make the same mistake again.”
It was during that same interview that she said she felt like she couldn’t connect with other men. “When you go through a bad enough breakup, you’re like, ‘I don’t like nobody,'” Williams said. “I was sitting there, I was like, ‘Do I like women enough? Can I get with a woman? Who can come in and fill this void?’ But I don’t [have that] yet. It’ll come.”
Before that, Williams was engaged to Dennis McKinley, who proposed during an October 2018 episode of RHOA. In Season 12, Porsha claimed that McKinley was unfaithful during her pregnancy, and that infidelity led to their divorce a few months after their daughter was born, per Bravo. Seven seasons earlier, when Williams first joined the show, she was married to ex-NFL player Kordell Stewart. They ended things in March 2013, about two years after they tied the knot.
The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip, Sundays, 9/8c, Bravo
