Tichina Arnold is officially single after a judge signed off on her divorce from her estranged husband Rico Hines. According to TMZ, the legal docs were finalized on July 15, six years after she first announced she wanted a divorce when she separated from her partner after discovering he had allegedly filmed a sex tape with another woman. She later claimed it wasn’t the first time Rico had strayed in their marriage.
As for the specifics on who got what, sources reveal that they both decided to waive rights to collect spousal support, with each of them getting to keep their personal assets. While Tichina announced her divorce in 2016, she didn’t officially file the paperwork until last August, though they had already been living separate lives for years at that point.
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The “Everybody Hates Chris” star spoke out about her decision to part ways with her husband in a previous interview with PEOPLE, where she said she felt “betrayed” after coming across a raunchy video of DaRico getting intimate with another woman. “I had that feeling of, you know, beyond him being my husband, this is supposed to be my friend, my confidant. Somebody who I can trust. And when you can’t trust the person that you sleep with every night, there’s a problem.”
“I could no longer trust him. I could no longer lay with him. And it doesn’t make him a horrible person. We all make mistakes, but not with me and not on my time and not in my life.”
What’s worse, Tichina apparently knew that the sex tape incident was not the first time Rico had cheated on her, which was ultimately what led her to realize the relationship had run its course.
She stressed that while people are prone to make mistakes, she couldn’t excuse the man who is supposed to love her unconditionally to step out of their relationship and share sexual relations with other women. “It’s beyond the fact that the infidelity, it happens. We make mistakes. And we fixed a few mistakes of his prior infidelities,” she added.
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“But when it becomes a pattern, then it’s no longer my problem. There’s a point where you eventually have to jump ship and save yourself, so I just merely saved myself and represented a lot of women that don’t know how to save themselves.”
While she wasn’t sure what the future had in store for her at the time of her interview with the publication, Tichina was firm with her words when she said she wasn’t going to let the issues that arose in her marriage dim her light. The “Martin” actress affirmed that she would continue dating but ruled out the possibility of ever getting married again.
“Like, this was my second marriage. I always say three strikes, you’re out. I don’t even want to make it to three strikes.”