Choosing positivity. While addressing his split from Lala Kent for the first time, Randall Emmett revealed that he intends to always respect his ex.

“She’s the mother of my child. No matter what happens in life, I will never disparage or talk ill about her because she’s Ocean’s mom,” Emmett, 50, who shares 12-month-old daughter Ocean with Kent, 31, said during an interview on GG Gharachedaghi‘s “Genuinely GG” podcast on Wednesday, March 23.

The director, who also shares daughters London, 12, and Rylee, 8, with ex-wife Ambyr Childers, noted that cordial coparenting is his No. 1 priority. “I have two other kids and I coparent with Ambyr and in that world I never said one negative thing and vice versa,” he added. “At the end of the day, I am not that comfortable in this whole thing, but the truth is that I just have to always look at the big picture.”

Emmett was previously married to Childers, 33, from 2009 to 2017. One year after their divorce was finalized, the filmmaker proposed to Kent in September 2018. Emmett and the Bravo personality welcomed Ocean in March 2021.

After postponing their nuptials amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Vanderpump Rules star sparked split speculation in October 2021 when she erased all traces of Emmett from her Instagram feed. One month later, Us Weekly confirmed that the pair had called it quits.

In the wake of her broken engagement, Kent has been candid about her tumultuous relationship with her ex-fiancé and explained why she was choosing to discuss their issues publicly.

“There are so many times where people are sending me messages about what I’m choosing to share. And for me, I want my daughter to understand what a healthy, respectable man looks like,” the reality star told Page Six in December 2021. “That is my job as her mother, to create that for her, so when she goes out and it’s time for her to find a partner, or it’s time for her to raise a son, that she knows what values a man should possess.”

In response to the Give Them Lala author’s claims, Gharachedaghi, 40, came to her longtime friend’s defense, writing in a comment on the outlet’s Instagram post, “If someone (Randall) is being their authentic-self and it’s all being referred to as ‘red flags’, why does the person (Lala) wait until they’ve experienced so many of these ‘red flags’ before they walk away?”

Kent later argued that it was “inappropriate” for the Shahs of Sunset star to weigh in when she doesn’t have all the details about what went wrong.

“She knows nothing about what is going on and how deep and dark and disgusting everything is,” the Utah native explained on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in January. “As someone who is a single mom, I would think you would take a [second to] pause and have compassion. I just thought after [the split] I don’t need the negativity.”

Gharachedaghi, for her part, questioned Kent’s decision to continue publicly addressing her breakup on Twitter when “one day all of ur anger will disappear,” but the “horrible things” that were said about Emmett will “always be there.”

Scroll down for everything Emmett shared with Gharachedaghi about his status with Kent post-split: