Actor Michael Beach, 60, is just fine with his unconventional family arrangement.
In an interview with Sway Calloway, Heather B and Tracey G on “Sway’s Universe,” the Soul Food actor revealed that he is happy sharing his home with his current wife of 17 years and ex-wife of eight years.
Michael married his current wife Elisha in 2007 and share four children. He wed his first wife Tracey back in 1990, right before reaching a critical point in his career, landing a part in the the star studded film “Soul Food.” The pair were together until 2006 and welcomed four children during their time married.
Michael explained that he never thought he would remarry after his first wife. “It didn’t work out. I thought, well, why do I have to do that again? I’m done.”
“On ‘Black Love,’ I talk about the fact that my ex-wife lives with my wife and I and our kids,” he told Calloway, adding, “She’s been living with us now for, I don’t know, 7-8 years, and she’s just part of our family.”
Despite the marriage ending, Michael noted, “It wasn’t a horrible marriage.”
He further explained how he and Elisha were together for a decade before getting married in 2007 and have been in each other’s lives for a long time.
“We’ve been together 24 years now,” Michael explained, emphasizing the length of his relationship with Elisha. “She literally, to and from my mind, saved me from myself … in terms of my happiness. I can’t imagine the idea of not being in love and being with someone … aging as I am and not having that relationship.”
The Waiting To Exhale actor, acknowledges that this situation might seem odd from the outside looking in, but for their family, it works perfectly.
“It sounds kind of crazy, yeah. It is a rare situation,” Michael said to the hosts. “They [his children] just know her as Tracey. They know we used to be married… because our older children, who are in their 30s, come over all the time. They know Tracey is their mom and I’m their dad.”
Michael and Elisha previously appeared on OWN’s Black Love series. On the show, Elisha gave her own account of how their living arrangement has been, praising Tracey for being a true helping hand during her pregnancy. She stated:
“It’s very odd but with his work schedule…[we’re] never knowing what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, where he’s going to have to be,”
She added, “[When] Davis was born, and when Davis hit two months, he was in Australia, France, South Africa, Atlanta. He was gone for, like, five and a half months. If Tracy hadn’t been here, I would have died or killed one of my kids….There was no way I would have made it through that time without her help– at all. It just would not have happened.”
Beach’s children with Elisha are named, Jackson, 14, Nolan, 10, Ledgend, who is in high school and Davis, 7.