Ready for a fresh start. Meghan King is keeping her fingers crossed for positive change in 2021 as she puts her roller-coaster year behind her.
“Getting divorced would be great,” the former Real Housewives of Orange County star, 36, told Us Weekly exclusively while discussing her plans for the year ahead. “That’s such a morbid thing to think about [and] to look forward to, but it’s funny how things change.”
King married Jim Edmonds in 2014 and later welcomed daughter Aspen, now 4, and twin sons Hart and Hayes, now 2. In October 2019, Us broke the news that the “Intimate Knowledge” podcast host and Edmonds, 50, had called it quits after five years of marriage amid allegations that the retired baseball player had been unfaithful, which he denied at the time. They settled on 50/50 custody of their children the following month.
The estranged pair’s split quickly turned messy as they attempted to keep their kids’ best interests in mind amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Despite her ups and downs with the former MLB star, King kept her heart open when it came to finding love and sparked a romance with Christian Schauf in May 2020. (Edmonds, for his part, moved on with girlfriend Kortnie O’Connor.)
Fans began to wonder whether King and Schauf, 40, had called it quits when King showed off her new St. Louis home in November 2020 and noted via Instagram that “no one is moving in” with her apart from her kids and her dog. Days after her virtual house tour, King confirmed that she and the businessman were over.
“After a terrible split from my ex-husband, I learned how to heal. I then met and dated a wonderful man: Christian. We laughed, went on adventures, made a long-distance relationship a thing of beauty, grew together, and then … well, we grew apart,” the Bravo alum wrote in a lengthy blog post addressing her breakup, adding that she wished “nothing but an abundance of love and happiness” for her ex-boyfriend.
Adjusting to single motherhood hasn’t come without its challenges, especially when it came to hosting the holidays solo. With her little ones with Edmonds on Christmas morning, King told Us that being alone that day was “really depressing.”
“I mean, I’m an adult who’s been driven by societal expectations for 36 years,” she added. “It’s just hard to one day decide that that’s not what I’m going to do anymore. … I’m single. I have a new house. I’m all by myself in it. On one hand, I’m so proud and I feel incredibly empowered, and on the other hand, I’m lonely. I want somebody to share this life that I’ve built with me.”
In the wake of her split from Schauf, King has dipped a toe in the dating pool in St. Louis. When it comes to her resolutions for the year ahead, however, she’s hoping to expand her horizons.
“I’m getting involved with a nonprofit that builds seamstress factories for women around the world. I’m particularly interested in an area in Africa,” she told Us. “I’m going to make that one of my missions for 2021. I’m really excited about helping others, or helping others while helping myself too, which I think is a huge part of being a newly single woman. … I feel empowered by helping others. Therefore, it helps propel me forward.”
With reporting by Diana Cooper
