Kendra Wilkinson Opens Up About Dating After Divorce from Hank Baskett: 'I Hope to Find Love Again'
Get ready for a whole new Kendra Wilkinson!
The former Girls Next Door star is back on TV with a new career — and a new life.
"I'm a single mom and I'm really trying to explore who I am right now," Wilkinson tells PEOPLE. "I am really putting myself out there. And I hope this chapter brings me to a better place."
Her new series Kendra Sells Hollywood, premiering Nov. 17 on Discovery+, follows her journey to become a real estate agent.
But the 36-year-old, who shares son Hank Jr., 11 and daughter Alijah, 7, with ex-husband Hank Baskett, admits the road to get to where she is now had its share of bumps.
"I started reality TV at 19 years old and it just kept going," says Wilkinson. "But one day my shows ended, my marriage ended and I just collapsed. Everything just kind of ended."
RELATED: Kendra Wilkinson Tackles the World of Real Estate in New Series Kendra Sells Hollywood
Ari Perilstein/Getty; Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
Wilkinson and Baskett were married for nine years before they split in 2018.
"We both are not perfect humans," she says of Baskett. "Maybe we were just too young. And that's okay. I still love Hank. He's such a good person. But sometimes it just comes to an end."
Wilkinson says that adjusting to co-parenting was jarring, to say the least. "It was a rough start for me to get used to it," she says. "I didn't know how to not have my kids. I wanted to cry when I wasn't with them. But then I realized, 'What am I going to do with my new life?' "
Want to get the biggest stories from PEOPLE every weekday? Subscribe to our new podcast, PEOPLE Every Day, to get the essential celebrity, entertainment and human interest news stories Monday through Friday.
Adrian Martin
Slowly, the reality TV star says she's opened up to the idea of dating.
"Until now, I never really felt ready," she says. "But now, I want to explore that other side of me, and I hope to find love again. I want to fill my home with someone else's energy. It will be nice to have that again."
Ultimately, Wilkinson says she has no regrets about the life and family she built with Baskett.
"Hank is an amazing person, and I'm so lucky to have been married to him," she says. "He is the greatest father. And to be honest, it's going to be hard to find another man like him because the bar was set so high."
But Wilkinson says she's up for the challenge — in love and in life.
"It can be hard to admit that we have to start from scratch," says Wilkinson, whose journey in real estate will unfold on the show. "But we can grow and change. And for me, it's all about hope and faith and trusting life again."
