Cynthia Bailey was seen without her wedding ring as she arrived at New York’s JFK airport amid reports that she filed for divorce from Mike Hill.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta veteran denied reports that the 52-year-old talk show host’s cheating ways led to her filing for divorce after 2 years of marriage.
According to The Blast, Cynthia and Mike filed for divorce after living apart on separate coasts for months.
In her first interview since she filed for divorce, the supermodel–turned–actress tells PEOPLE the decision to end their marriage was a mutual one that the two chose “with grace and peace.”
RELATED: Cynthia Bailey and Mike Hill Are Separated And Have Filed For Divorce
“It may not seem like it when you think about divorce or a relationship ending, but this for us is not a bad thing,” she told PEOPLE on Wednesday.
“This is not a tragic ending for us. This is two people who have enough love and respect for each other to be truthful about their relationship in terms of asking themselves, ‘Are we truly happy together? How do we want to move forward?’ And then who were brave enough and loved one another enough to make that choice together.”
Cynthia said she got out of the marriage after 2 years because she didn’t want to prolong the inevitable.
“The beauty of the whole situation is Mike and I, we learned from our previous relationships. [Peter Thomas] and I were married for almost eight years and we struggled a lot of those years; I didn’t want to wait eight years to figure out that it’s not working or we’re not compatible as we thought we were. And Mike’s the same way.”
She added: “We always said we never wanted to feel like we were just in this to be in this. We didn’t want to settle for anything less than happy. And we just got to the point where, after really evaluating it, we felt like we were better suited to just be friends rather than trying to force something to work that just wasn’t working anymore.”
