It’s probably fairly safe to say that fans were shocked just this past February when The Bold and the Beautiful‘s Scott Clifton (Liam) and his wife, Nikki, had separated after a decade of marriage.
Clifton has, understandably, been fairly quiet about the split, not sharing much more than to say that they remained best friends and wanted to do right by their son, Ford. Now, though, the actor has opened up a bit more, talking about the separation on his former General Hospital co-star Maurice Benard’s (Sonny) State of Mind vlog.
“We’re separated, but I think it’s the best decision we ever made,” Clifton explained. “She’s still my best friend.”
In fact, he noted, he just saw her that same day that he spoke to Benard.
“We were hanging out with our kid,” he explained, before acknowledging how privileged the family was. The two decided to separate, Clifton told Benard, and get another house. “So we have two houses and our son just kind of gets to go back and forth between the two. And they’re very, very close, just a five-minute drive from each other.”
“I’m proud of it,” Clifton admitted of how the two have made this new family work.
Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI
They’ll have family dinners at different houses throughout the week and are doing everything they can to keep the family structure intact for six-year-old Ford.
“The nature of our relationship was always such that we were not…” At this point, Clifton paused as he collected his thoughts. “Nikki, I’m sorry, but we were just not romantically compatible. We loved differently. It took us way too long to figure that out, but once we did, things got better. It was her that said, ‘I release you. I can’t love you the way you deserve to be loved, and you can’t love me.’”
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He was hurt at first, he admitted, but then once he could see past the pain, he realized that “it was such a kind, rational, compassionate thing to do and now I thank her for it. And our relationship is so good now.”
The actor marveled over how different this “family unit” was from anything else, and how it doesn’t really “fit” anywhere, but it all boils down to one thing. “At the end of the day,” Clifton told Benard, “everything you try to do is so that you raise happier, healthier kids than you were.”
And really, he’s right. For some couples, staying together in a marriage neither of you want isn’t the best thing you can do. And for that, our hats are off to both of Ford’s parents for recognizing what was best for not just their future, but his.
Clearly, Clifton makes far better choices than his character, as you can see in our photo gallery of Liam’s worst decisions.
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