Eva Marcille quits ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’, says she wants to be 'a voice for people of color'
Eva Marcille has announced that she will leave ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’ and won’t come back for Season 13. The 35-year-old was on the show for three seasons before calling it quits.
On Tuesday, June 16, Marcille announced her plans during her radio show ‘Rickey Smiley Morning Show’. The mother-of-three said: “I appreciate the bond of friendship that I’ve made with my castmates and strong personal relationships I have with numerous executives and producers of Bravo. 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."
"I look forward to serving the community on Ricky Smiley Morning show and finding other ways to be a voice during this transformational time in our country for people of color," the TV star said.
Marcille joined the reality show during Season 10, which premiered in November 2017, as a “friend of the Housewives" but soon shone as the main player and was promoted to full-time Housewife by Season 11. “The time that I spent on Housewives I enjoyed myself. I cried, I laughed, I obviously fought. Most importantly, I made some great friendships with some beautiful women,” she stated.
During her morning show, Marcille mentioned about her three children — six-year-old daughter Marley Rae and sons Michael Todd, 1, and Maverick, 8 months as she plans to focus on her family. "I believe my time is up. I have a 6-year-old daughter and two young boys still in diapers. There are 24 hours a day and there is a lot of work to be done. I decided to spend my time and energy focusing on my kids and my community. And not so much reality show business. It gave me so little time to be with my family, to bond with my new husband [Michael Sterling],” the fashion model said.
Marcille also wished luck to her former castmates, 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 all 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.”
This comes after Marcille's co-star, NeNe Leakes, opened up about the former’s role on the reality show in March. "We have a great cast right now except for one person, I think. 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,” Leakes said at the time.
When she was asked to name the person, Leakes added: “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.”