[Music]
for millions of fans hgtv offers the
greatest lineup of benchable home design
and real estate focused reality
programming
but while the network's hosts crafters
and designers are celebrities in their
own right
they often find themselves embroiled in
salacious scandals
here are some of the biggest
controversies ever faced by the sunny
hosts of
hgtv ellen degeneres isn't just a
daytime talk show host and stand-up
comedian
with her wife actor portia de rossi
degeneres
has bought and sold more than 20 homes
and properties
according to architectural digest and
she also published a book about
interior design with all that experience
in her back pocket
degeneres then joined hgtv in 2015 with
ellen's design challenge
a reality competition show like project
runway or top chef
but focused on furniture crafting and
flawless design
but the first season of the series ended
with one of the most shocking twists in
reality tv
contestant tim mcclellan was declared
the winner earning a 100 000
prize for designing a wooden desk in the
ultimate challenge
but according to the washington post a
week after the finale taped
producers learned that established
designer simon schacht had previously
created a desk nearly identical to the
one mcclellan claimed as his own
mcclellan was immediately disqualified
and his victory and prize money went to
runner-up katie stout
the solution for us is to start all over
again
degeneres invited mcclellan onto her
talk show to explain his side of the
story
he said in recollection i've never seen
his piece
with that said the similarities of the
two pieces are quite compelling
and i understand the decision made and
accept it
hgtv's long-running series levitt or
listed makes a life crossroads into a
game
should you move to a new home or
renovate your current one and possibly
later sell it
in 2015 according to the miami herald
realtor david byzantine and designer
hillary farr brought the whole levit or
listed operation to raleigh north
carolina for dina murphy and timothy
sullivan
and are you going to love it or are you
going to list it
well we've decided to list it
it's fair to say that murphy and
sullivan did not love the work performed
by the show
in 2016 the couple filed suit against
production company big coat tv
alleging breach of contract and unfair
trade practices
over what they felt was extremely subpar
renovation work
the pair were required to give big coat
tv 140
000 and to use a local contractor they
didn't like
and who had poor customer ratings and
then big code didn't even pay all of
that money to the contractor
nor did it use a licensed architect the
result was a quote
irreparably damaged floor low quality
carpet installation
and multiple surfaces that were left
unpainted
murphy and sullivan contend that they
were essentially duped into paying for
the production of an episode of the
series
instead of their actual home drew and
jonathan scott
the identical twin house rehabbers and
flippers who build themselves as the
property brothers
are the flagship personalities of hgtv
since 2011 they've been all over the
network with shows like property
brothers
property brothers forever home buying
and selling
and brother versus brother the scots
maintain a wholesome warm image
and hgtv has reaped the profits from
doing business with the duo
but both the twins and the network alike
were dealt a blow when jonathan scott
got into a seemingly uncharacteristic
bar fight in north
dakota according to usa today the scots
arrived in fargo to speak at a 2016
design conference
and late one night jonathan hit a local
bar called dempsey's public house
at 2 am staff attempted to close which
agitated scott
according to tmz things escalated to the
point where a bouncer placed scott in a
headlock
claiming to have not done anything wrong
and to have simply gotten caught up in a
fight already in progress
scott called 9-1-1 and reported the
bouncer for assault
prosecutors never charged scott with a
crime citing a lack of evidence
married home reno team chip and joanna
gaines are hgtv darlings
the fixer-upper stars are so valuable to
the network that they got their own
spin-off channel the magnolia network
named after their lucrative home decor
business and brand
married since 2003 the gaines are a
tight-knit family-first couple who
balance their many professional
endeavors with the rearing of five
children
they're also a deeply religious duo and
they've openly discussed their faith on
a number of occasions
including oprah winfrey's super soul
sunday and
at their church antioch community church
a non-denominational christian
congregation in waco texas
i was made for a reason and i need to i
need to let whatever
god has created me for i mean that
that's that needs to be known
but in a 2016 report buzzfeed dug into
the church's firm stance against
same-sex marriage and promotion of
conversion therapy
which the human rights campaign has
called a quote dangerous practice
also as of 2016 no same-sex couple had
ever appeared on fixer-upper
representatives of the games company did
not respond to the story
but hgtv did saying in a statement
we don't discriminate against members of
the lgbt community in any of our shows
hgtv is proud to have a crystal clear
consistent record of including people
from all walks of life in its series
reality tv has been around long enough
that the general public has at least
some sense that shows in the genre are
carefully edited
staged or juiced to maximize
entertainment
that being said hgtv's house hunters was
singled out in 2012 for a wrongdoing
that would make it one of the most
non-real reality shows on the air i
don't think there's any way that the
show could actually follow someone
because
real house hunts take months former
house hunters participant bobby jensen
wrote about her
experience on the show for the blog
hooked on houses
jensen and her family were in the market
for a larger house and planned on
turning their present home into a rental
property
but producers said their story wasn't
exciting enough
so they instead pushed the idea that the
family just
needed a bigger home then jensen blew up
the whole concept of the show
which purports to follow a family as
they look for a new home
according to jensen the couple had
already signed the papers on a new house
before their episode ever started
production
she added when they decided to film our
episode we had to scramble to find
houses to tour and pretend we were
considering
apparently the losing homes the jensens
rejected were just the recently cleaned
actual houses of their friends
as the host of the hgtv juggernaut house
flipping show flipper flop
former real estate agents and married
couple tarik and christina el musa
had a lot of happily ever afters when it
came to properties
but in real life their seemingly
picture-perfect marriage and carefully
calibrated image were erased after a
frightening blow up
i felt like i was drowning and i was
just trying to stay above water like
just doing whatever i could to just
get through the day in 2016 according to
tmz
police in orange county california
answered a call regarding a man holding
a gun at the el moussa home
sending a helicopter and 11 deputies to
defuse the situation
according to witnesses tarik had taken a
gun from the
house bolted away and ran down a hiking
trail while christina emerged from the
house
visibly trembling and sobbing
authorities found tarik and he willingly
disarmed
although police later seized five guns
from the home
in december 2016 the el moussas
announced their separation after seven
years of marriage
they said in a statement to people like
many couples we have had challenges
we will continue to work through this
process civilly and cooperatively
and plan to continue our professional
life together
when they were still together personally
and professionally
tarik and christina el moussa's flipper
flop was so popular
and their success so seemingly
attainable that countless viewers
figured they could also find financial
independence by buying
renovating and reselling houses at a
huge profit too
the el moussa's encouraged that wealth
mindset holding a series of seminars
called success path
according to in touch i want to do
something super cool something unique
leave a legacy and just live a life that
when i was a kid i watched
other people on tv live led to believe
that flipping houses was a relatively
easy way to make money
ohio resident catherine brockfield paid
nearly two thousand dollars to attend a
seminar
but after alleging that the class was
little more than a scam
she asked for but did not receive her
money back
leading her to file a complaint to the
state's attorney general
and a similar story went down in other
states
in florida wendy sisk contacted
authorities after she says she wasted 80
thousand dollars on courses
while in iowa laurie ingersoll got her
attorney general involved
and got back almost all of the forty-two
thousand dollars she sunk into success
path
after she filed a scam complaint and
authorities discovered that the el
moussa's program violated the law
one part of chip and joanna gaines
portfolio of projects is the magnolia
market at the silos in waco texas
a large upscale complex that includes
shopping
a garden and a cafe it's an effective
way for gaines fans to get a taste of
the star's brand but it was also the
source of a squabble that didn't exactly
cast the duo in the best light
in 2016 according to the waco tribune
darren farmer a manager of head
properties filed a lawsuit against the
magnolia complex and chip gaines
specifically
farmer saw damages of two hundred
thousand dollars to one million dollars
over a gate installed by games that
blocks access to the adjacent property
he controls
while farmer bought his piece of land
earlier in 2016
the previous owner had worked out a
lease agreement with gaines so that
magnolia employees and customers could
park there
the lease expired renewable talks
between farmer and gains fell apart
and so gaines put up the gate farmer
claimed
chip is just trying to strong-arm me
because he doesn't want to pay what i am
asking for that lot
a judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2017
according to kwtx when the game simply
bought farmer's lot
designer carpenter carter osterhaus
entered the fray in 2004 with tlc's hit
rating spaces and then landed his own
show on hgtv
three years later with carter can but in
2017
after he'd moved on to other projects
osterhaus was accused of assault by a
former colleague who had worked on
carter can
make up artist kaylee kaminsky told the
hollywood reporter that in 2008
osterhaus repeatedly demanded she
perform an intimate act on him
which she did after he threatened to
fire her then kaminsky alleged
osterhouse forced or coerced her into
repeating the act
10 to 15 times in response oster house
called the allegations quote upsetting
and admitted he had been in an intimate
relationship with kaminsky but said it
was a consensual arrangement
a producer on carter can told the
hollywood reporter
it didn't raise any flag so i don't
think we suggested an
intervention it didn't seem like it was
abusive osterhouse continued to work for
hgtv
in several capacities as of 2021
windy city rehab has aired two seasons
worth of home renovation projects
interior designer alison victoria finds
old broken down
fixer-uppers in the chicago area and
then makes them modern and livable
she was assisted by donovan eckhart a
contractor who would supervise
and manage the construction elements of
each project windy city rehab will
continue production according to
deadline but without eckhart
his time on the show culminated in
multiple messy lawsuits for hgtv
according to people victoria and eckhart
were co-defendants in a case filed in
2020 by a pair of chicago area
homeowners
accusing the windy city rehab team of
shoddy construction that led to water
damage
cracked columns and other problems that
required more than one hundred thousand
dollars worth of repairs
also in 2020 two different homeowners
filed a lawsuit against the show
and its stars for leaving several
problems with its renovation
such as water drainage issues leaks and
a faulty roof
everything goes out the window in 2021
eckhart moved from defendant to
plaintiff when he sued windy city rehab
producer bigtable media
and hgtv parent company discovery inc
for 2.2 million dollars citing quote
defamation and intentional infliction of
emotional stress
according to deadline eckhart alleged
that his show was scripted
and carefully constructed to make him
seem like the villain
as well as the face of many of those bad
business allegations
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