Eva Marcille won’t be returning for season 13 of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. The 35-year-old model and reality star announced the news during her Atlanta radio show, The Rickey Smiley Morning Show, on Tuesday.
First sharing a statement, Marcille said, “I appreciate the bond of friendship that I have made with several of my cast mates and strong personal relationships I have with numerous executives and producers of the Bravo and Truly Entertainment companies. I am thankful for the opportunity I was provided. However, after speaking with my family and representatives, I believe that what I hope to accomplish for the culture and community will be better served by focusing on other opportunities.”
Marcille later said her “time is up” on the Bravo show.
“I have a 6-year-old daughter and two young boys still in diapers. They’re 24-hours a day and there’s a lot of work to be done,” the mother of three said. “So I decided to spend my time and energy focusing on my kids and my community, and not so much reality show business.”
Noting that filming the reality series was very time consuming, Marcille added, “It gave me so little time to be with my family, to bond with my new husband [Michael Sterling].”
Marcille admitted she’s walking away from a big pay day with the decision, adding, “My question to myself is what is more important right now — is it the money or is it the movement and the culture and what I can impact? And to me it’s a no brainer.”
She went on to praise all of her co-stars, saying, “I want to be very clear, even though we fought on the show, I love every single one of those black women. They are queens all in their own right. They are stars. And I wish them the most successful season and transformational season 13 that The Real Housewives of Atlanta has ever seen.”
Back in March, Marcille’s co-star, NeNe Leakes, wasn’t quite as kind when talking to ET about Marcille’s role on the show.
“We have a great cast right now except for one person, I think,” Leakes said at the time. “I think only one person on this cast doesn’t seem to have carried any weight this season. And I think that’s very obvious who that person is, and I don’t think they actually sit in the cast that well.”
When pressed to name the cast member in question, Leakes noted, “I don’t feel like Eva brings that much to the cast. I’m just being honest. …[If] you don’t miss the person at all, it’s sort of like, we didn’t even know you were here, you know? And all season, doing a lot of scenes from FaceTime, that’s been the last couple of seasons. …So, If I had to change, I would change her.”
