A wise Housewife once said, “You can’t tell black is cheap.” And if there’s one thing Black folks know how to do, it’s fake it ’til you make it. On a new episode of her Humble Brag podcast, former Real Housewives of Atlanta star Cynthia Bailey opened up about how her ex-husband Peter Thomas‘ financial woes impacted how she dressed for reality TV cameras.
“It’s a very hard situation to be a Housewife. I think people don’t realize the pressure there is to keep up with the Joneses, to give a good show. People don’t want to watch broke people; they want to see wealth,” said her co-host, Crystal Minkoff, who appeared on three seasons of the Beverly Hills franchise. This prompted Bailey to share how she used to budget when she was on RHOA.
“Life happens, even if you are on a reality show,” said the 59-year-old former model. “If my financial situation changed for whatever reason, I would have to pivot, modify, and adjust.”
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“When I was going through my struggles with Peter, you better believe I was recycling whatever little designer stuff I had going in. You better believe my butt was at TJ Maxx and Marshalls trying to put together [an outfit].”
“That season, I pretty much wore black the whole time because in my mind, you can’t tell black is cheap,” she candidly confessed.
Bailey made her debut on RHOA in 2010 and remained a peach-holder until exiting the show in 2021, and then returning as a “friend of” in recent seasons. The TV personality and Thomas were featured on the early seasons of the show. The now-exes married in 2011 in an extravagant and drama-filled ceremony that was featured on the show. Incidentally, on the podcast, she also touched on how their money problems affected their nuptials.
“My ex-ex [Thomas] and I, when we first started the show, we were having lots of financial issues,” said Bailey. “We did a bankruptcy thing. There was just a lot that I didn’t know and understand. You know, even to the point that, like, my wedding. Girl, we was, I couldn’t even finish paying the wedding planner. The money was gone!”
Their divorce was finalized years later in 2017, which is when Bailey opened up to PEOPLE magazine about maintaining a relationship with Thomas, despite their financial struggles, cheating allegations, intimacy issues, and heated showdowns between Bailey’s girlfriends and her then-man.
“I’m really pleased with the way we handled our divorce,” Bailey said at the time of the interview. “I did not want to be mean, or ugly, or ratchet about it. I chose to be in my marriage. I was happy for many years in my marriage and a lot of great things came out of my marriage. I’m good, we’re good.”
In December 2024, The Neighborhood Talk broke the news that Thomas was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to not paying his taxes, according to court documents reviewed by PEOPLE.
Following Thomas’ sentence, he was subject to two years of supervised release, per the court docket in his case, and had to pay some $2.5 million in restitution to the IRS. In July of that year, he pleaded guilty to failure to pay over trust fund taxes after prosecutors said he evaded more than $2 million in employment taxes for several of his businesses between 2017 and 2023. Thomas was recently released from prison in February 2026, according to a report by TMZ.
Bailey went on to marry sports broadcaster Mike Hill in 2020. However, the two parted ways in 2022, citing the strain of a long-distance relationship as a key factor in their split, rather than infidelity, amid rampant rumors of Hill cheating.
Watch Bailey keep it all the way real about her past financial struggles on the Humble Brag podcast in the clip below.
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