Tia Mowry Loves Herself 

At 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, I’m on the phone with Tia Mowry, listening to her sing the lyrics to Mariah ­Carey’s “Butterfly.”  

“  ‘Spread your wings and prepare to fly,’ ” she croons, before recalling how she cried while blasting the 1997 single on the drive home from her best friend’s house on October 4, 2022—the day she publicly announced her split from ex-husband Cory Hardrict. “Butterflies are my thing,” Mowry, 46, continues. “I have a tattoo of a butterfly, and whenever I see one, wherever I am in the world, I always think, I’m where I’m supposed to be.” 

Still, it was a process for her to realize that being a single coparent to son Cree, 13, and daughter Cairo, 6, was the destination for her union to Hardrict. Mowry met the actor when she was just 20 years old; the two were together for a total of 22 years, 14 of which they spent married. It was only when Mowry began to have a better relationship with herself, she says, that she was able to make the difficult decision to walk away from her marriage—and to do so with a feeling of peace. 

“There are situations in life where a lot of women may not think that they have the choice that they do. And it starts with going on this journey of understanding who you are—understanding your traumas, your behaviors, and loving on that inner child,” she says. “Once you start to do the inner work, then you’ll get this Aha! moment—and you’ll look up and say, Wait a minute. I have a choice to live the life that I want to.” 

Mowry has spent most of her life in the public eye. She became a celebrity at the age of 15, thanks to the success of the ABC sitcom Sister, Sister—which she starred in alongside her twin, Tamera Mowry-Housley. Since that time, she has maintained a healthy balance of privacy and transparency with the media and her fans, opening up in recent years about everything from postpartum depression to the realities of getting older. 

“I remember the first time I became vulnerable in my career,” Mowry recalls. “That was when I came out with my book Whole New You: How Real Food Transforms Your Life, for a Healthier, More Gorgeous You: A Cookbook. I shared my endometriosis journey. I remember being in New York, sitting down with publications, and I was so nervous and scared. But I learned from that moment that sharing your vulnerability is what connects you to people.” 

Mowry’s divorce was finalized in April of 2023, and she immediately let followers in on her experiences as a newly single woman.  On TikTok, she poked fun at dating for the first time in her 40s; and she launched the eight-part docuseries Tia Mowry: My Next Act, which premiered on We TV this past October. In the series, she chronicled her life post-separation.  

“Divorce is very common,” Mowry says of choosing to share this chapter so publicly. “It’s something that a lot of people experience but don’t talk about,  because there’s an embarrassment behind it, and there are so many other negative feelings around it. I’m not saying that divorce is great, because it sucks, but it’s a part of our life. It’s not something that we all can run away from.” 

Her choice not to mimic her favorite insect, the caterpillar—which retreats into a cocoon until it transitions into a beautiful, colorful being—has attracted some critique. On social media, people began picking apart scenes from her and her ex’s 2017 appearance on the OWN series Black Love (which ended in 2022), looking for cues as to what went wrong and placing ill-informed blame on either side. Mowry was also accused of  “thirst trapping” when photos of her smiling and wearing a bathing suit on vacation didn’t match public expectations of a downtrodden divorcée. Some even accused her of pretending to enjoy singlehood to save face, advising her to return to her ex. 

“What’s really unfortunate is when people project their life onto you and make it their truth,” says Mowry. “It will rock me for a minute, but then I will move through it—because I realize, at the end of the day, it really has nothing to do with me.” 

On her reality show, Mowry was seen sharing laughs with her assistant, trying speed-dating for the first time and flipping through Raya profiles with friends. There were also scenes in which she shed tears with the women she calls her “found family” over the realities of doing life solo. 

“There are moments when it just gets too heavy,” Mowry admits. “There are moments when you feel like you can’t breathe. There are moments when you feel like you’re underwater. But that is when you can’t be afraid to ask for help. That is when you can’t be embarrassed to share with your community what you’re going through. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to my best friend, who has known me since I was 12 years old. She has seen my evolution in the purest and rawest form. And I would turn to her whenever I would feel like I was drowning, and she would tell me, ‘Tia, you’ve come so far.’ ” 

Mowry has also leaned on her core family— including her twin sister, Mowry-Housley, and her sister-in-law, Zandy Mowry, who is married to her brother Tavior.  “There’s this special bond that we will always have that will never leave us,” Mowry says of her sister, clarifying previous comments that the two weren’t as close as they used to be. “What I meant by that was, she’s not as accessible to me as she used to be. That’s a part of life. Change is constant,” she adds. “But change does not mean that something is wrong.” 

Embracing impermanence has been a cornerstone of Mowry’s courage, amid such a major life transition. “There’s a quote from this book that I read called Brave New You: A Road Map to Believing That More Is Possible, by Cory Allen, and it stays with me: ‘Stay curious, present and unattached’—that’s how I’m moving through life right now,” she explains. “Meaning, time is borrowed. My children’s time with me is borrowed. My life is borrowed. My therapist helped me with this perspective. She said, ‘When you know that you are borrowing something, you treat it differently.’ ” 

When Mowry thinks back to the woman she was two years ago, scared about the future, she sees a completely different person than the one she is now. “I’m at peace with myself. I’m at peace with where I am in my life,” she says. “I have so much gratitude. I’m more present. I used to live in the past. [And] I used to live in the future, always trying to plan what my life should look like. But now, because I’ve learned about change—that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you plan, no matter how hard you work, change will always happen—I’ve been meditating on living in gratitude with where I am now, what’s in front of me. And I’ve never lived in that state of mind before.” 

Part of that includes being genuinely happy to be single; and putting aside the relationship apps for a bit. “Solitude is where the magic happens,” Mowry says of taking a break from dating. “I’ve been reading books and learning more about what love is. I want to learn more about myself, my triggers, why I behave the way I behave, what are my traumas, what are my attachment styles—learn more about what love really is, before I get out there again.” 

What might seem like a small epiphany is a huge declaration for a woman who was taught to believe that her purpose in life was to please a man. “My purpose in life now is to continue to build a relationship with me,” Mowry says. “We have a lot of podcasts, movies and all of that about loving partners, but that’s not the only dynamic of love. Love is also found when you love on yourself.” 

CREDITS:

Hair: Marquita Lynch using BaBylissPRO & Paul Mitchell
Makeup: Anton Khachaturian at Cloutier Remix
Nails: Kim Truong using Gelish Cream Gel at Star Touch Agency
Set Design: Priscilla Lee, Photography Assistants: Kenny Castro & Jeremy Eric Sinclair Digital Technician: Aron Norman
Fashion Assistants: Joi Holmes & Lidiia Sarukhanian
Set Assistant: Ryan Moerer
Production Manager: Cecilia Alvarez Blackwell
Production Assistants: Aaliyah Henderson & Ernie Torres
Post Production: Sam Nandez
Location: Apache