Tia Mowry can pinpoint the exact moment when her marriage began changing.
On Nov. 16, the Sister Sister star sat down for an interview with TODAY hosts Hoda and Jenna, where she opened up about her difficult split from Cory Hardrict.
“I knew when I really started to focus on my happiness,” the 44-year-old star said. “I feel like women, we tend to focus on everybody else’s happiness, making sure that everybody else is OK — meaning our children, our friends, our family.”
Mowry and Hardrict were married for 14 years prior to their split. The former couple share two children together: Cree, 11, and Cairo, 4. When her marriage began fading, the mother of two said she experienced an “awakening” that ultimately led to her decision to part ways from her husband.
“At the end of the day, it’s about self-love,” Mowry explained. “When you start to really work on yourself, love yourself, know your value and know your worth, then all of a sudden, there’s this awakening. And it’s not easy. It’s a hard journey, but at the end of the day, I feel like it is so, so worth it.”
Further along in the interview, Mowry said her perspectives about life and love changed shortly after the death of her grandmother and Alaina Housley, the late niece of her twin sister Tamera Mowry-Housley, TODAY noted.
“I feel like when I started to, again, like I said, focus on myself, but there was this sadness. And I knew that life is short. I had actually lost my grandmother. We had lost Alaina Housley. And both of them at the same time,” she shared.
“There was just an ‘aha’ moment in me where I said, ‘You know what? We need to tap in, see what’s really going on with your happiness. Life is short. Let’s go. Let’s start working on you and really focusing on what really, really matters here, which is at the end of the day, your peace, your joy, and your happiness.’”
All in all, Mowry doesn’t see her split from Hardrict as a failure.
“My marriage was a success,” she said. “I look at it as like a curriculum when you’re in college or high school. You’re learning, you’re growing, you’re evolving, you’re creating. I was able to create with Cory some beautiful, amazing children. At the end of that curriculum, there’s a graduation, there’s a celebration. So that’s basically how I’m looking at it now.”