Tia Mowry Speaks Out After Sharing She Isn't "Close" to Twin Sister Tamera Mowry
The Sister, Sister bond between Tia Mowry and Tamera Mowry Housely is still strong.
Days after raising eyebrows for insinuating a fractured relationship between her and her twin sister, Tia clarified what she meant in the now-viral moment.
“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,” she told Us Weekly on Sept. 24. “We begin to take on new roles and responsibilities within our lives. That is what that was all about.”
She continued, “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. It’s called life.”
Rumblings about Tia and Tamera’s current status surfaced at the Set. 20 premiere of her new WE tv docuseries Tia Mowry: My Next Act, where The Game alum discussed the changes in her life following her divorce from Cory Hardrict—one of them being the distance in her relationship with her twin sister.
"It's times like this when I feel and wish that my sister and I were still close and I could pick up the phone and call her,” the 46-year-old said in the clip released Sept. 20. "But that's just not where we are right now."
In the aftermath of the comments, fans wondered about the divide in the Sister, Sister stars bond. However, a source told E! that Tia was simply speaking about physical distance.
"The sisters are close but the quote being referenced was about their physical location,” the insider explained. “Tamera lives in Napa and Tia lives in Los Angeles."
Like Tia—along with her children Cree, 13, and Cairo, 6—her father Timothy Mowry and brother, Tahj Mowry live in Los Angeles. Tamera, her husband Adam Housley, and kids Aden, 11, and Ariah, 9, live in Napa, and the duo’s other brother, Tavior Mowry lives in Tennessee.
Tia Mowry: My Next Act chronicles Tia’s live after her public divorce from Cory—whom she was married to for 14 years. After Tia and Cory confirmed their 2022 split, Tamera publicly spoke out in support of her sister on social media and in real life.
In fact, Tamera later applauded her twin for being "a strong, strong woman."
"I am proud of her for living in her truth and not being afraid to do so," she told E! News in 2022. "The Mowrys, we are there for her."
Keep reading to see Tia, Tamera and more of the Sister, Sister cast then and now...
Aside from starring in Tia & Tamera and the hit Disney Channel Original Movies Twitches with her twin sister, Tia found solo success with BET's The Game and her own Cooking Channel show, Tia Mowry at Home. Since 2019, she's starred in the Netflix sitcom Family Reunion, several TV holiday movies and the WE tv docuseries Tia Mowry: My Next Act.
Tia has also released a cookbook, has her own YouTube channel and launched a line of vitamins and supplements, Anser.
In 2008, she married actor Cory Hardrict, the two having met on the set of their film, Hollywood Horror. The two has two children, son Cree, born in 2013, and daughter Cairo, born in 2018. Tia and Cory divorced in 2023. She later filmed another
Outside of her projects with her sister, Tamera starred in the Lifetime Dr. Strong Medicine, several holiday TV films and found success as a TV host. But after serving seven years as one of the panelists of The Real, Tamera announced she would be leaving the daytime talk show in July 2020.
"I'm so proud of what all the ladies and I have accomplished there, including two well-deserved NAACP Image Awards and a Daytime Emmy," she said in a statement. "However, all good things must come to an end, and it's with a bittersweet smile that I announce that I am moving on from The Real."
In 2011, Tamera married former baseball player and Fox News correspondent Adam Housley, and they have two children, son Aden, 8, and daughter Ariah, 6. The family has their own YouTube channel, The Housley Life.
While the show was called Sister, Sister, it really was all about the mother, as the 227 star—who is the first and only Black woman to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series—stole every scene she was in as Lisa, Tia's adoptive parent and fashion designer.
She would go on to enjoy recurring gigs on Everybody Hates Chris and Let's Stay Together before joining the main casts of The First Family in 2012 and Tyler Perry's The Paynes in 2018. She's also appeared on Girl Meets World, K.C. Undercover and A Black Lady Sketch Show. In 2021, she began playing Paulina Price on Days of Our Lives.
The actress also reunited with her on-screen daughters in several projects, including the docuseries Tia & Tamera and Lifetime's Christmas movie My Christmas Inn and Netflix's Family Reunion.
The WKRP in Cincinnati and Frank's Place star played Ray, Tamera's oft-exasperated father.
Since leaving his limo service business behind, Reid has become a fixture on the Christmas TV movie circuit, appearing in seasonal films for Hallmark Channel, Lifetime and OWN. He has also guest-starred on Grey's Anatomy, That '70s Show, Greenleaf and Dolly Parton's Heartstrings.
Go home, Roger!
Houston spent six years playing Roger, the twins' annoying neighbor-turned-sometime-love-interest, while also serving as a member of the R&B group Immature. He went on to release six studio albums as a solo artist and continued to act, appearing in You've Got Served and Fat Albert. Since 2019, he's appeared on VH1's hit reality series Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood and he has produced several TV movies for BET.
In August 2020, Houston, 39, married then 19-year-old Miya Dickey. The two are parents to two children, Zara, born in 2021, and Greyson, born in 2023.
Following his run as Bud on The Cosby Show, Richmond joined Sister, Sister in its fifth season as Jordan, Tamera's boyfriend. He went on to appear in films such as Scream 3, National Lampoon's Van Wilder and Not Another Teen Movie, and also popped up in an episode of Psych.
Lee was introduced in season five as Tia's boyfriend, Tyreke, going on to become a series regular in the sixth and final season.
He would go on to guest star on a string of hit series, including Moesha, ER, Boston Public and Monk. In 2014, he landed a main role in Starz's Survivor's Remorse, which was produced by LeBron James and ran for three years. Most recently, he starred in the miniseries Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist.
He married Sheana Freeman in 2010 and they have two sons.
The twins' real-life little brother played three characters during his brief time on their show: Tia's cousin Tahj, T.J. Henderson (his character from fellow WB sitcom Smart Guy during a crossover episode) and an SAT tutor.
In addition to starring in Smart Guy, Tahj was also known as Michelle Tanner's BFF Teddy on Full House. He would later go on to star in ABC Family's hit sitcom Baby Daddy and voice the character of Wade in Disney Channel's popular animated series Kim Possible. Most recently, he starred on the series The Muppets Mayhem.
Tahj dated Glee star Naya Rivera between 2000 and 2004 after meeting on the set of Smart Guy, and he penned a heartfelt tribute to her after she went missing while boating in July 2020 (she was later confirmed dead by authorities).
"We grew up together. We became adults together. We experienced so many firsts together," he wrote in an Instagram caption. "You were my first experience with everything; love, intimacy, heartbreak. We broke each other's hearts and then mended them back together... more than once," he continued. "I will never not think of you. No woman has ever measured up what you gave me or how you made me feel. I've never liked to admit it but I have never stopped loving you."
It's hard to find a hit show Lawson, who played mean girl Rhonda, didn't appear on in the '90s and early aughts. Her credits include Saved By the Bell: The New Class, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Steve Harvey Show and Dawson's Creek. Plus, she, once again, played a high school's reigning queen of mean in Save the Last Dance. And her streak of teen dramas continued with key supporting roles in The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, Teen Wolf and The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
Since 2016, Lawson has starred on the OWN drama Queen Sugar, which is produced by Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay.
Lawson became Beyoncé and Solange Knowles' step-sister when her father, actor Richard Lawson, married their mother, Tina Knowles, in 2015. Fun fact: Richard was also on Sister, Sister, playing Lisa's boyfriend in the final season. Tina and Richard divorced in 2024.
Before she brought it as cheerleader Isis in the hit 2000 movie Bring It On, Union played Tia and Tamera's friend Vanessa in seasons four and five.
The ageless actress has been in a slew of movies since, among them The Brothers, Deliver Us From Eva, Bad Boys II, The Perfect Holiday, Cadillac Records, Think Like a Man, Top Five, Birth of a Nation, Girls Trip and Breaking In. She won an NAACP Image Award for her role as a driven journalist in the BET series Being Mary Jane and currently plays an LAPD detective (who is her same character from Bad Boys II) in Spectrum Originals' LA's Finest.
Union spent a season as a judge on America's Got Talent and upon her exit from the show alleged there was a "toxic culture" on set and she was subjected to racist and sexist remarks. However, an independent investigation determined that "no one associated with the show made any insensitive or derogatory remarks about Ms. Union's appearance," NBC and AGT producers shared in May 2020.
At the time, Union told Variety, "At the end of all this, my goal is real change—and not just on this show but for the larger parent company. It starts from the top down. My goal is to create the happiest, most high-functioning, inclusive, protected and healthy example of a workplace."
She married now-retired NBA star Dwyane Wade in 2014 after almost six years of dating. They welcomed daughter Kaavia James via surrogate in 2018 and she is also stepmom to Wade's three kids from previous relationships.
Watch E! News weeknights Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m., only on E!.
