Cynthia Bailey has nothing but “love and respect” for her ex-beau Leon Robinson.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta friend addressed the relationship in a recent interview with The Daily Dish, insisting she and Leon have maintained a tight and supportive bond since their split over 20 years ago. Cynthia said she was particularly proud of how she and Leon raised their 25-year-old daughter, Noelle Robinson — so proud, in fact, that she believed they “deserve[d] a co-parenting award.”
“We do a pretty good job,” Cynthia said about her dynamic with Leon. “I think, for me, the secret sauce is I had the right baby daddy. You know, we had great chemistry just in terms of who we were as people. I knew that this was someone that, regardless of how the relationship went, I could be friends with this person for the rest of my life.”
Cynthia confessed she never worried about an unplanned pregnancy with Leon, as she quickly knew she wanted a family with him.
“He was someone that I loved and I respected. And I wanted to make a baby with him,” she said. “During the time when I got pregnant, I was like, ‘You know, let’s just say, I was not careful, OK?’ I was like, ‘If I get pregnant, whoo! I’m having a baby with Leon! We’ll see what happens.’ So, yeah, Noelle was definitely a love child. And we both, you know… Noelle is his one and only. She’s my one and only.
“We have a great, great respect for each other as parents,” she continued. “And we love our Noelle. So, love and respect. That’s all you can ask for.”
Cynthia shared more details on her and Leon’s relationship in a 2024 sitdown with Black America Web, admitting she was drawn to the Hollywood actor even before they were properly introduced. Although Cynthia didn’t specify when and where she first laid eyes on Leon, she confirmed it was through the small screen.
“The first time I met him… Well, the first time that I saw him on TV, I felt a connection,” she said, referring to Leon’s acting career. “I knew that if I ever met him, we would connect. And I was right because we met and we connected, obviously…. And fun fact: Noelle spelled backwards is Leon.”
Since her split with Leon, Cynthia has gone through two highly publicized divorces. She and Peter Thomas called it quits in 2016 after seven years of marriage. Cynthia went on to marry Mike Hill in 2020, about two years before they separated.
Cynthia told The Daily Dish she was “at a cordial, respectful place with” her ex-husbands, suggesting she wasn’t nearly as close to them as she was to Leon.
“Nothing more, nothing less,” she said about the relationships. “You know, I wish them well.”
The Atlanta mom is now in a relationship with LePrince, a Dutch-born recording artist she began dating in 2024. Find out what Noelle thinks of her mother’s new boyfriend.
Quick on the heels of famously sassy, phrase-turning R&B singer and reality TV star Tamar Braxton’s announcement her recently released album, “Bluebird of Happiness,” will be her last — at least for a while — and news that her husband, music executive husband Vincent Herbert, founder of Streamline Records, was legally ordered to pay Sony more than $3.7 million to settle a lawsuit over a 2013 advance, the couple hoisted their grandly proportioned and glamorously appointed Mediterranean mansion in Calabasas, Calif., up for sale at $15 million.
The Herbert-Braxtons, married in late 2007 after about five years together, purchased the 13,716-square-foot mansion inside the double-gated Estates at The Oaks enclave in April 2013 for $10.5 million and public records show since then there have been several notices of default filed and subsequently canceled against the two-acre spread that provides a total of seven bedrooms and nine full and two half bathrooms between the main house and poolside guesthouse.
Wrought iron and glass front doors open to an entry vestibule and foyer with black and white floral-patterned inlaid floor and a floating, wrought iron railed staircase that curves up to the bedrooms on the second floor. The main living and entertaining space makes a great sweep across the rear of the residence with gleaming wide-plank hardwood floors laid in a classy chevron pattern.
A central gallery with glossy grand piano is flanked to one side by a lounge with semi-circular sofa in front of an ornate fireplace and to the other by a “champagne bar” modeled after The Dorchester Hotel in London with tufted velvet sofas and a stately wood-paneled ceiling.
Arched French doors open the vast space to an immense, stone-paved loggia with retractable canvas shade awnings and a bowling alley-length dining table that easily seats at least two-dozen al fresco diners. With elaborately carved cabinetry, granite countertops and a super-sized commercial-style range under a hand-hammered copper hood, the kitchen is open to a spacious informal dining area that, in turn, opens to a family room with fireplace and French doors to the backyard.
The three-story mansion’s creature comfort also include a home theater, a game room, an office, a wine cellar with tasting room and, unsurprisingly, a recording studio along with an elevator, an camera-equipped security system, a gentlemen’s lounge with authentic barber chair, a mirror-walled gym and a subterranean parking garage that will accommodate over a dozen cars. The mansion makes a U-shaped embrace around a broad and grassy courtyard with swimming pool and spa beyond which a soccer pitch-sized lawn gives way to a panoramic view over rugged ravines and undeveloped mountaintops.
Some of the other, equally sized and similarly luxurious estates in The Estates sections of The Oaks are owned by reality television’s Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian, Michael Jackson’s mother Katherine Jackson, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and Jay McGraw, elder son of extraordinarily well-compensated TV therapist Dr. Phil McGraw, and his Playboy model wife Erica Dahm.