Cynthia Bailey and Mike Hill Address His Past History of Cheating
The RHOA couple chats about how she was able to accept her fiancé's relationship history.
Cynthia Bailey and Mike Hill may be planning for their future together ahead of their wedding later this year, but that doesn't mean they don't come into this relationship with a past. And in a preview for The Real Housewives of Atlanta's February 9 episode, Mike and Cynthia are both open about his past of cheating in relationships (clip above).
When The Daily Dish recently spoke to the couple, they opened up about his relationship history and how it affected them.
"When it comes to Mike’s past, his past has nothing to do with me," Cynthia said. "I’m only looking toward my future with this man and I love the person that he is today. I love the way he’s grown just as a person, as a fiancé, as a dad, as a man. And with that said, we all have a past. We all have had different things that we’ve struggled with. It’s not my place to judge him, judge somebody that I didn’t know."
Cynthia further elaborated: "I don’t want to say I don’t care about his past, but I kinda don’t really care about it [laughs]. I care about my future with him. I’m looking forward. I’m not ever looking backward."
Mike, who has been married before, as he mentions in the clip above, has apologized to the women that he cheated on over those "transgressions" and wants to be open about it because he has two daughters.
"The irony in the whole situation is, I think because of my past, I think that actually helped us in our relationship, build our relationship and come in a little bit stronger because I was writing the book Open Mike at the time," he said. "And I was reading some of the book while we were dating and she saw the transparency that I had in me being able to open up about some of the things I did as far as the infidelity is concerned and the people I’ve hurt and how sorry I am, so I’m not gonna run from the past. I’m opening up about my past because I want to help people in the future."
These days, Mike is focused on creating his modern family with Cynthia, her daughter Noelle, and his two daughters, Kayla and Ashlee.
"I think that’s one of the reasons why when I did the engagement, you heard me say, thank you for accepting me for my past and being here in the present with me and I want her to be my forever now," he said. "So because she is the first person I’ve ever been with that I’ve been able to be open about my past transgressions and shown her that I’m trying to grow, that I want to grow, that I’m still a work in progress. People have flaws or whatever, but she’s working with me and she knows that. She loves me for the person that I am today. And because of that, because of her security in that and because of her faith in me to do the right thing, this is the reason why I’m able to open up a little bit more with her and to be in love with her. I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done."
He also noted, "I paid for it and I look at my daughters and some of the things that they had to go through in their relationships or whatever, and I feel like it’s a little bit of a karma. But at the same time, I’m just thankful that I have a lady in my life who loves me for who I am, the man that I am now and the growth that I have and she wants to continue to help me grow in the future."
So, how has Mike changed since that time in his life and just how did he make those changes?
"You reform. You ask God for forgiveness or whatever and you pay your price for whatever reason it is or for whatever you’ve done and you hope that you can still move on because your life continues to go on," he said.
"You can’t continue to put yourself in a mental prison because of the things that you’ve done and other people putting yours — putting them — put you in a mental prison for a long period of time, they’re not looking at themselves and the things that they’ve done. Maybe it wasn’t infidelity, it could have been something else that could have been very simple or whatever. So I’m not gonna judge them for what they’ve done in the past and I just hope that even if they judge me for what I’ve done in the past, they can look at the strides that I’ve made and have a little faith in me that I’m going to at least try and do the right thing in the future."
You can follow Cynthia and Mike's journey every Sunday on RHOA at 8/7c. And Cynthia dishes more about Mike in this throwback The Daily Dish interview, below.
