Tia Mowry really needed her family — and her cousin Jerome Wiggins came through.
During the Friday, October 18, episode of Tia Mowry: My Next Act, the actress, 46, got overwhelmed while planning a birthday party for her 6-year-old daughter, Cairo. Mowry, who also shares 13-year-old son, Cree, with ex-husband Cory Hardrict, admitted she was missing her loved ones.
“Jerome is my cousin but not only is he family, he is like my best friend,” she said in a confessional. “I consider him someone I can vent to without judgment. He is like my anchor slash therapist.”
Mowry called Wiggins, who told her he was on his way to visit her.
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“It means everything to me that Jerome can drop everything and just come right by my side,” she admitted. “I am really needing family right now. So I talked to Jerome and he is coming. Jerome has always been my protector and he is my safety net. He knows me so well.”
Later in the episode, Wiggins and Mowry shared a sweet reunion. Mowry used the opportunity to reflect on how close she is with Wiggins — and how much his later mother meant to her.
“I was so close to Jerome’s mother because she was like another mother to me,” she added. “Just like Jerome, whenever I needed family or whenever I needed someone, she would get on a plane and come.”
Mowry’s comments about family come one month after a trailer for Tia Mowry: My Next Act made headlines. At the time, a clip of Tia circulated online where she explained how she wished she and twin sister, Tamera Mowry, were “still close.”
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“[I wish] I could pick up the phone and call her, but that’s just not where we are right now,” she said in the premiere of her show.
Tia subsequently clarified to Us Weekly how her comments were taken out of context. She explained that the only issue keeping her from seeing Tamera, 46, more was physical distance.
“You could hear it from me, and this is basically what I was insinuating: I feel like as we grow up, we all start our own families and their children need to lean on them. We begin to take on new roles and responsibilities within our lives,” Tia explained to Us. “That is what that was all about.”
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Tia noted that most of her relatives — including brother Tahj Mowry and father Timothy Mowry — still reside in Los Angeles, Tamera, however, lives in Napa with her husband, Adam Housley, and kids Aden, 11, and Ariah, 9.
“In these transitions in life, sometimes you just want a hug and you just want someone to be as accessible as they used to be, and that is not the case,” she continued. “It’s called life.”
Tia made it clear that she was on good terms with Tamera, adding, “I love my sister very much. She loves me very much. We have a closeness and a beautiful connection. But that’s what that was all about. It’s just how life unfolds, and it happens with many families.”
Tia Mowry: My Next Act airs on WeTV Fridays at 9:30 p.m. ET.
