Sticking to his story. Real Housewives of Atlanta’s Will Jones is denying that he had a girlfriend while dating Cynthia Bailey.
After new Atlanta housewife Eva Marcille accused Bailey’s man of previously introducing her a different girlfriend on the Sunday, January 28, episode of RHOA, Jones spoke exclusively to Us Weekly about her claims.
“I was very surprised by that, that completely threw me off because when I first met [Eva], I only met her for like 10 minutes and the rest of the time was with her now-fiancé talking about the things I wanted to do for the kids in Chicago because he used to be a prosecutor in Chicago,” Jones told Us on January 31 about meeting Marcille three months prior to seeing at her Kandi Burruss’ party.
“So when she actually came out and said I had a girlfriend, it just threw me off because I’m like ‘You know I didn’t have a girlfriend. Why are you saying this?’ And that picture that she’s saying ‘Oh this picture is here and this picture is proof in the pudding’ is just a picture of me supporting you and your guy, but it doesn’t say that’s my girlfriend, nor did I actually say that’s my girlfriend,” he continued. “And any woman that I’m with, I’m going to validate them because that’s what a gentleman does. I’m going to introduce them to somebody as ‘Hey this is my lady, this is my woman friend’ because that’s what a gentlemen does. So I don’t know maybe it just got taken out of context, I don’t know, what can I say.”
Jones added, “I was ambushed. I was absolutely ambushed … [The housewives] don’t know me to ask an opinion, so I found that kind of odd, but I guess that’s the nature of this show … I’m not worried about what they think of me, I’m worried about what Cynthia thinks about me.”
Bailey started dating Jones after she finalized her divorce from her husband of six years, Peter Thomas. The former couple separated in May 2016 after nine years together. The reality TV personality met Jones at her 50th birthday party, and shortly after, the pair started seeing each other non-exclusively.
“Cynthia and I have been transparent since day one with each other,” Jones explained. “She didn’t want to be exclusive when we first met. We both said in the show, we were dating other people. We were not exclusive, and then as we spent more time together I told her that I wanted to focus on her and I’m not dating anybody else but her. But a lot of times I guess with the show, and the show does have a lot of twists, those comments are overshadowed.”
Jones, who called the conflict with Marcille “manufactured drama,” emphasized that his intentions with Bailey are pure: “My intentions were really to authentically date and get to know Cynthia. That was it. That was my goal. Not doing it for entertainment, not doing it for anything else. But if I’m an opportunist, then I took that opportunity basically to get to know her. I’m single, so who wouldn’t want to take that opportunity? So that’s pretty much it really.”
As for his future with Bailey, Jones told Us, “I keep up with Cynthia. We’re good friends … I think Cynthia and I just have a lot of stuff to discuss between us.”
Real Housewives of Atlanta airs on Bravo Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.
