Just because Eva Marcille turned in her peach doesn’t mean she’s not still a part of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. It’s a sisterhood of sorts, after all. The America’s Next Top Model star announced her departure from RHOA after season 12, but when season 13 pops up on fans’ TV screens (likely next year), Eva’s face will be there — at least for Cynthia Bailey’s wedding episode.
“Eva will be front and center,” Cynthia teases of her big day, which is this Saturday. “Eva is definitely one of my bridesmaids.”
The two women, who video chatted with ET, started off as rivals on Housewives when Eva joined the show in season 10, pitted against each other as “the models,” Cynthia from the “old school” and Eva from the “new school.” But once the reality TV cameras went down, the women’s friendship fell into place.
“At the end of the day, this is a sunflower,” Cynthia says of Eva. “I’m love and light. I think that energy kind of overwrites any of the bulls**t that was thrown our way. I just felt her spirit and I liked her, I always liked her. I didn’t really know her much before the show.”
“Well, I know who you were, Cynthia Bailey!” Eva quips, recalling her first encounter with the supermodel. The ladies were seated across from each other at a New York Fashion Week show in 2010, Eva approached Cynthia for a picture, Cynthia obliged… but then immediately turned away from her future co-star!
“She said thank you and moved on,” Eva recalls, saying she basically clutched her pearls after experiencing what felt like Cynthia blowing her off.
“I’m sure I was more gracious,” Cynthia says, confessing she doesn’t recall the meeting. “We’ve come full circle honestly.”https://www.instagram.com/p/CBiuLgUjdFm/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=12&wp=652&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.etonline.com&rp=%2Fcynthia-bailey-and-eva-marcille-react-to-rhoa-changes-from-nene-leakes-exit-to-new-additions-154486#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A17853.19999999774%7D
Cynthia and Eva have teamed up with Seagram’s Escapes for the brand’s Holiday Marketplace, a one-stop virtual shop to support Black-owned businesses. Black entrepreneurs have until Oct. 15 to submit their businesses and products for a chance to be included in the digital shopping experience at this link. Three lucky businesses will also be chosen for $10,000 grants.
“For Eva and I just being black women, this is where it definitely hits home for us,” Cynthia says. “We are businesswomen, entrepreneurs and we want to give back and we want to support other Black women.”
“At the end of the day, as Black women, as business owners, no matter how great we do in business, at the end it’s our community,” Eva adds. “It’s the community in which we come from. It’s the community that we represent, and so it’s the community that we choose to go back and fuel, to make sure that our kids and our kids’ kids have an opportunity that we didn’t have.”
