Whitney Rose is speaking out on her divorce for the first time.
The “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star, 40, told SiriusXM’s outlet Radio on Thursday that she is the one who filed to end her nearly 17-year marriage to Justin Rose, 58. Whitney made the comments during an interview with hosts Evan Real and Danny Murphy, marking her first public discussion of the split since news broke last Tuesday night.
“I made that choice,” she said. “And you see it play out through the season. It took me a long time to get here.”
Whitney insisted she wanted the marriage to succeed and exhausted every option before filing. “I gave it [my] all,” she told the hosts. “I tried everything.”
The emotional toll of the decision remains heavy. “It’s very sad and hard,” she said. “But I am glowing because I’m finding happiness and peace. I have peace in my heart through all the chaos. I love Justin. I love my family.”
Despite leaving the Mormon Church two decades ago, Whitney said its teachings still shaped her hesitation about divorce. “I still have that Mormon programming running through my brain that you don’t get divorced,” she explained. “You don’t do that to your family.”
Her own childhood complicated the calculus further. “I grew up in a divorced family, and a childhood that was hard,” she continued, noting this history made her especially determined to protect her children from similar struggles.
That protective instinct initially delayed the separation. Whitney recalled putting off the conversation with daughter Bobbie, 16, and son Brooks, 13, for months even after she and Justin began nesting and living apart. “I pushed off doing it and having the conversation with them for so long,” she said. “I think me choosing to leave the home, separating and nesting, we put that off for so long because I was so scared to tell the kids.”
The revelation landed differently than she feared. “But once I told the kids, they were like, ‘Thank you. We want you happy. We want dad happy,'” she shared.
Whitney framed staying as the more selfish choice. “It’s more selfish of me to stay in a situation where I’m not happy in,” she said.
The exes are now focused on co-parenting. “We are keeping it peaceful, amicable and we’re co-parenting well,” she told the radio show. She further confirmed that Bobbie and Brooks are “doing amazing” and “are fine because they have two parents who love them. And we are both showing up for them.”
Whitney filed the paperwork in Salt Lake City last Tuesday night, just hours before attending the outlet’s second annual “Virtual Reali-Tea” Awards. She also submitted a proposed parenting plan.
The filing followed months of speculation. The outlet exclusively reported in July that the couple had been “living separate lives,” with sources noting they were rarely seen together even when occupying the same spaces. “They are never together, even when they’re in the same place, like the gym,” one insider said at the time.
The Roses’ split arrives amid broader relationship turmoil within the “RHOSLC” cast. Angie Katsanevas’ separation from Shawn Trujillo was revealed just two days before Whitney’s filing, prompting one source to observe that the Bravo series is “so bad on relationships.”
Whitney’s divorce storyline will unfold during the upcoming season of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” which is currently filming.