Two years after leaving “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” Cynthia Bailey remains busy, focusing now on her acting career and various brand promotions including a lucrative five-year relationship with Seagram’s Escapes.
She is also single again, having divorced broadcast journalist Mike Hill late last year after two years of marriage.
“All I can say is I’m great now,” Bailey said in an interview earlier this month at Thompson Atlanta in Buckhead with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He’s great. We were not great.”
So she is dating again. “I’m pretty open minded.” At age 56, she said she isn’t actively pursuing any man under the age of 40 but prefers men closer to her age. “I need someone who is young at heart and takes care of themselves,” she said.
Bailey is using a dating app for entertainment people called Raya. “It’s hard for people outside our industry to understand our lifestyle,” she said. “I love creatives. I’m a creative. A perfect partnership would be someone who is a creative and has their own thing going on.”
Her daughter Noelle Robinson, who is also an actress and model, helps her mom out. “I run prospects by her,” Bailey said. “She’s pretty protective of me. She has my best interests at heart. She’ll tell me if someone feels too old or feels too young.”
Both her marriages and divorces were chronicled on “Real Housewives of Atlanta.” She’s happy to date without that level of scrutiny. “There’s something great about being able to date privately before going public,” she said.
She said her departure from “Real Housewives” was a mutual decision. “I felt like my time was up,” she said, after 11 seasons. “They offered me to just be a friend [a part-time position] but I felt like if this was going to be a break, let’s make it a clean break.”
At the same time, “I still have organic relations with most of the ladies. I check in off camera. The sisterhood will always be there.”
And while she supports fellow “Real Housewives” alum Bethany Frankel’s efforts to unionize reality stars, she said “Bravo treated me amazingly well. I still have a great relationship with them and left on a good note.” (She even plans to stop by BravoCon in Vegas next week.)
Bailey is now focused on acting with roles in multiple movies this year including TV One’s “Under the Influence,” Tubi’s “Rock the Boat” and BET+’s “Blossom.”
Her connection with Seagram’s Escapes goes back to 2018 with her creation of the Peach Bellini flavored malt beverage cooler. That did well enough for Seagram’s to name her a brand ambassador of the entire Escapes line and giving her the opportunity to create the new Berry Mimosa line.
She said she got to go to a lab in Chicago and play chemist for the Peach Bellini line. “I was super hands on,” she said. For Berry Mimosa, the process was more streamlined: Seagram’s gave her 10 different options to choose from.
“The Berry Mimosa pairs really well with salmon,” she said. “It’s very light, a little tart.”
Seagram’s even placed her photo on the Berry Mimosa bottle. “They wanted brand recognizability,” she said.
