Cynthia Bailey opened up about creating a budget-friendly wardrobe for herself amid tough financial times during her seasons of The Real Housewives of Atlanta<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
In a new episode of her Humble Brag podcast with Crystal Minkoff, Bailey said she shopped at department stores to save money amid her “struggles” with ex-husband Peter Thomas, who in 2024 was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to not paying his taxes<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Bailey and Thomas got married on season 3 of RHOA in 2011 then finalized their divorce in 2017<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cynthia Bailey<\/a> is one of the first to admit that not everything is peachy in the world of reality television.<\/p>\n In a new episode of her Humble Brag<\/a> podcast<\/a> with Crystal Minkoff, the former Real Housewives of Atlanta star, 59, opened up about how her ex-husband Peter Thomas’ financial ruin affected the way she dressed for the cameras.<\/p>\n “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 Minkoff, which is when Bailey shared how she budgeted when she was on the show.<\/p>\n Cynthia Bailey for ‘RHOA’ season 16 promo “Life happens, even if you are on a reality show,” she said. “If my financial situation changed for whatever reason, I would have to pivot, modify and adjust.”<\/p>\n “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].”<\/p>\n “That season, I pretty much wore black the whole time because in my mind, you can’t tell black is cheap.”<\/p>\n Bailey and Thomas were featured in the early seasons of Real Housewives, in which she made her debut in 2010 (she exited the show in 2021<\/a> but returned as a “friend of” in recent seasons).<\/p>\n The now-exes married in 2011, with their divorce being finalized in 2017, which is when Bailey \u2014 who went on to marry Mike Hill in 2020 before they split in 2022 \u2014 opened up to PEOPLE about maintaining a relationship<\/a> with Thomas, despite weathering marriage struggles, cheating scandals<\/a>, squabbles with Bailey’s pals and sexual lulls.<\/p>\n Cynthia Bailey and Peter Thomas pictured in 2016 Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for\u00a0<\/strong>PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/strong><\/p>\n “I’m really pleased with the way we handled our divorce,” Bailey said at the time. “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.”<\/p>\n In December 2024, Thomas was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to not paying his taxes, according to court documents reviewed by PEOPLE. (News of his sentencing was first reported by The Neighborhood Talk<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Following his sentence, Thomas 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. Thomas pleaded guilty in July of that year 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, according to a February 2026 report by TMZ<\/a>,<\/p>\n Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Cynthia](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/122fd253213bf2a3dc9a16e5d3b2435f.jpeg\"\/)
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Credit: Gizelle Hernandez\/James Bianchi\/Bravo<\/p>\n![\"Cynthia](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/383b5e86ebb46a38bcae7c4ce715f217.jpeg\"\/)
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Credit: Santiago Felipe\/Getty<\/p>\n