{"id":600339,"date":"2026-04-22T21:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/600339\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T21:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:28:11","slug":"real-housewives-of-atlanta-star-kim-zolciaks-ex-lee-big-poppa-najjar-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/600339\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’ Star Kim Zolciak’s Ex Lee ‘Big Poppa’ Najjar Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘RHOA’ Kim Zolciak
\n Ex-Boyfriend ‘Big Poppa’ Dead at 68<\/p>\n

\n Published
\n April 22, 2026
\n 1:09 PM PDT\n <\/p>\n

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Lee Najjar<\/a> — best known to “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” fans as Kim Zolciak<\/a>\u2019s elusive “Big Poppa” sugar daddy — has died at 68.<\/p>\n

The wealthy Atlanta real estate investor passed away Saturday, April 18 — tragic news confirmed by his daughter Katelin via a slate of IG Story pictures of them together and an emotional tribute. Lee’s cause of death is unknown.<\/p>\n

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The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner also confirmed his death to TMZ.<\/p>\n

Najjar became a notorious off-camera figure during the early seasons of ‘RHOA’ — as the mystery man bankrolling Zolciak\u2019s luxe lifestyle — all while he was still reportedly married to another woman.<\/p>\n

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He and his wife shared two children — Katelin and Jeremy Najjar.<\/p>\n

“Big Poppa” was never fully shown on camera, but his presence loomed large … fueling one of the show\u2019s juiciest early storylines and helping cement ‘Housewives’ as must-watch TV.<\/p>\n

Kim said back in 2009, when their romance ended, “He will always be the love of my life, but it\u2019s time for me to move on” … and it wasn\u2019t long after that his identity became public.<\/p>\n

He was 68.<\/p>\n

RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘RHOA’ Kim Zolciak Ex-Boyfriend ‘Big Poppa’ Dead at 68 Published April 22, 2026 1:09 PM PDT Lee Najjar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-600339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}