The story of Christina and Ant Anstead's marriage and separation is a unique one. From
a FaceTime chat to a surprise wedding, and then a surprise decision to go their separate ways,
we're dishing the details on the real story.
Before they went on their first date, Ant Anstead called Christina over FaceTime. And this pair of
strangers hit it off so well, their very first call ended up going on for hours.
The future Mr. & Mrs. Anstead were set up on a blind date by a friend back in 2017,
and, as Christina shared in a 2019 interview with Extra,
they spent literal hours chatting each other up. Christina told the outlet that they then,
"Met at a restaurant with a group of people, and it was just love at first sight."
"I said, 'You know what? You gotta meet my friend Ant. He's a really cool dude.'" "You
should listen to this guy." "And the he sent me a picture, and I was like 'Ok I'll do it.'"
In 2018, Christina reminisced about this fateful FaceTime on Instagram, when she wrote,
"A year ago today [Ant] called me for the first time and we spoke for 29 [minutes].
Two days later […] he FaceTimed me. […] I answered and we spoke for 2.5 hours."
"You're a FaceTimer. I would never FaceTime anybody else." "You love FaceTime." "No
I don't. I'm not a FaceTime fan, but I'll FaceTime you whenever you like."
That same day, Ant also took to Instagram to wax nostalgic
about the video chat that started it all, writing,
"ONE YEAR TODAY!!!!! You answered my phone call! Then A TWO AND A HALF HOUR FACETIME! I knew then!"
Christina claims that she knew straight away that she and Ant were meant to be.
She wrote on Instagram in 2019,
"I told my dad at a hockey game a week after we met that we were going to get married.
He said 'well if you are saying it then you probably are.'"
The feeling sure seemed to be mutual. The same day Christina posted about
the father-daughter hockey game chat, Ant posted,
"'A soulmate is a stranger you recognize.' […] I
called you two years ago today! And straight away I knew I knew you!"
The pair clicked right out the gate, and they were both were clearly feeling the good vibes.
In a January 2019 issue of People magazine, Christina said it was as if her, quote,
"life did a 180" after she met her now-husband. Ant added,
"We've both had challenges, but ever since we met it's just been an instant connection."
Before Ant was set up with the current love of his life, he was first married to Louise
Anstead for about 12 years. According to House Beautiful, the two dated for around
nine years before they got hitched, and after nearly two decades together, the pair decided to
go their separate ways. The TV presenter announced the split on Twitter in October 2017, writing,
"Despite the fact [that] I am usually a very private person, I do feel the need
to let my friends and followers know that Lou and I have been separated since July."
"You know what? One thing can lead to another thing, and that can lead to something else,
and before you know it, it's snowballed." "Excuse me?"
But the once-private Ant may have stepped into the limelight to clear the air on his
relationship timeline. Because that same month, he met Christina. As the home renovation star
wrote on Instagram in 2018 to commemorate the first anniversary of the day they met:
"[We've] been inseparable ever since."
Think you'd be cool with your spouse working alongside their ex everyday?
While Christina and her ex, Tarek El Moussa, are no longer married,
they still host the HGTV hit Flip or Flop together — including Summer 2020's Season 9. Of course,
this was not the first season they filmed post-split: Tarek and Christina separated in 2016,
and the first post-divorce episode of Flip or Flop aired in May 2018.
"So, get rid of the walls, come back, regroup?"
"Yes."
But the latest iteration of Flip or Flop is still going strong
and the former spouses have skillfully eased into their new dynamic. In August 2019,
Tarek joked to People magazine that the best part of hosting a show with his ex-wife is,
"[I don't] have to say yes to everything anymore. 'You want new cabinets?
I don't think so. No cabinets for you!'"
This lines up with something Christina said in an interview with Yahoo! Life in 2018.
Following the premiere of their first season as a divorced couple, she told the outlet,
"[Before], at the end of the day, we knew that we were still together and going home
together […] but we're going to battle for our own choices now more than we used to."
"This is single-handedly the worst idea you have
ever come up with." "I've heard you say that multiple times."
While this whole dynamic sounds like it could be a powder keg of awkwardness, Tarek and the
Ansteads have somehow kept things more than civil. And according to People magazine, it looks like
Christina's not the only one who's moved on to greener grasses. In July 2020 Tarek proposed
to his girlfriend of one year, Selling Sunset's Heather Rae Young, and of course, she said yes.
Following her split from Tarek, Christina's personal life has been a fixture in the tabloids.
But her engagement to Ant wouldn't be covered by the gossip rags — well, at least, not right away.
Ant proposed to Christina in September 2018, but as he shared with People in January 2019,
"We had an engagement, we just didn't tell anyone."
"What? Christina. Are you engaged?" "Shh!"
It appeared that the two wanted to keep their wedding as hush-hush as possible. Christina added,
"We didn't want all the fuss. Just a quiet wedding without all the drama and paparazzi."
As much as they tried to maintain some level of secrecy, whispers of an engagement got out before
the couple could make an official announcement. In June 2018, Life & Style reported that a
source claimed Ant was quote, "already ring shopping." And then, as People pointed out,
when Ant mentioned on Instagram that he and Christina were quote "Celebrating something
special" in December 2018, some fans wondered if a proposal was the cause for the fancy dinner.
At the time, a rep for Christina brushed off the buzz, telling E! News that Ant's caption
was in reference to Christina wrapping her series, Christina on the Coast.
But as we know now, they were already very much engaged when Ant posted that snap.
On December 22nd, 2018, Christina and Ant tied the knot in a surprise wedding ceremony at their home.
And when they went for a so-called "surprise" they really meant it. For starters, their guests didn't
even know they were about to witness a wedding. According to People, Christina and Ant asked 70
of their friends and family members to meet at their house in Newport Beach, California,
to allegedly then go watch the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade together. When the unwitting
celebrants showed up to the house, they were met with what turned out to be a magical celebration.
Christina talked about the rush in putting together a surprise ceremony,
telling People magazine,
"The day we went to get our marriage license,
the guy working was like hyperventilating, excited. We had to tell him this is a huge
secret. No one knows. […] [We were] checking the internet to see if anyone found out."
"You may now kiss your bride. [Cheers]"
Evidently, the secret celebration worked out, and the two got hitched without a hitch.
The future Mrs. Anstead told Us Weekly in June 2018 that she had a feeling she would
get married again, but didn't think it would happen until 2020. And it looks like she was
only sort of wrong: Three months after that interview, Christina and Ant got engaged.
And three months after the proposal, they walked down the aisle.
One evening in September 2018, Ant and Christina hopped on their bikes and went to get some dinner.
Christina assumed it was just a chill night of hanging out together, but she said,
"We were watching the sunset, and then all of a sudden
he just got on his knee and proposed. So yes, I was surprised."
As caught off guard as she was by the timing of the proposal, it sounds like it was not
entirely out of the blue. A source claimed to Life & Style in February 2018 that the couple,
"Would love to get married, and they're discussing it already."
Ant and Christina had a lot in common before they started dating,
and that has not gone unnoticed by Ant. In a 2019 interview with People,
he noted that they both have two kids from a previous relationship, they both wrote books,
and they both host TV shows about fixing something up with the intent to eventually sell it.
Christina's series Flip or Flop follows her journey as a house flipper, and Ant co-hosts
Wheeler Dealers, a series about repairing and selling old cars. And according to Ant,
"There's a very weird synergy between us."
But wait, there's more: Christina and her ex-husband's new fiance, Heather Rae Young,
just so happen to have some things in common, too. As Christina told Us Weekly in April 2020,
she and Heather are both quote, "super healthy" and text each other about recipes.
"I love cooking, I love cooking plant-based food, I love having family over."
Oh, and let us not forget that there's the whole thing where they look
strikingly similar. That might be synergy, but we're thinking Tarek might just have a type.
Following her honeymoon with Ant, Christina had a hunch she might be pregnant.
And it turned out she definitely was. When talking about the pregnancy in a July 2019
interview with Entertainment Tonight, she said of the couple's growing family,
"I was just like, 'OK, this makes five — here we go!'"
"Just getting used to this new normal."
The new addition is their first child together, and Christina and Ant both have two kids from
their previous marriages. After Christina saw her positive pregnancy test, she didn't just
share the news with Ant. Instead, she took a more creative route. She told People magazine,
"[Ant] always makes coffee in the morning, so I just chucked the pregnancy test in the coffee
cup because I didn't know what to do and I wanted to surprise him, and I ran around the corner."!
Ant told the outlet that when he saw the pregnancy test bobbing in his java,
"I thought it was a thermometer. I was thinking, 'Is the coffee machine broken?'"
He quickly realized that Christina was trying to tell him she was pregnant. As far as that
morning goes, the best part of waking up was a pregnancy test in Ant's cup.
In March 2019, Christina and Ant announced that they were having a baby.
Christina posted to Instagram,
"[Ant] and I are so excited to announce [baby Anstead] coming
this September!! The kids are all so excited to meet their new sibling."
When chatting with TMZ the following month, Tarek casually mentioned that his ex-wife
was pregnant with a boy...which was a detail that had not yet been revealed to the public.
Following his interview, a rep for Christina and Ant told Us Weekly,
"While Christina and Ant wished they could have shared the news themselves,
they are very excited to welcome a baby boy in the fall."
"Woo! Little crazy."
Tarek may have accidentally broken the news of the baby's gender, but he didn't spill
the baby's due date. On September 6th, 2019, Hudson London Anstead was born.
Just after Christina and Ant welcomed baby Hudson, Tarek took to Instagram to write:
"I can’t wait to meet the little guy! […] If Christina and Ant pay well I may babysit."
Tarek and Christina may be have been in a place where they can kid around about their co-parenting
arrangement, but that wasn't always the case. On a 2018 episode of The Dr. Drew Podcast, Tarek said,
"I was so broken after everything I went through, literally broken,
that I was devastated. I could barely walk, I was so broken as a person
after going through all the trauma and the divorce and all these different things."
"What I've learned through all of this, is that communication
is the most important thing in the world."
It looks like time can heal even the messiest of public splits.
In an Instagram Story in January 2019, Tarek said,
"So I want to let everybody know I'm not devastated, I'm not heart-broken,
I'm not upset. I'm actually really happy for [Christina] and I'm happy for Ant and most
importantly I'm happy for my kids, because guess what? They're going to have a nice
stable household and really at the end of the day it's about them and I'm just very, very happy."
But in 2020, things changed.
Less than two years after they walked down the aisle at their surprise wedding ceremony,
Christina and Ant Anstead split up. The split was announced on Instagram on September 18th,
2020. Christina and Ant had ended their relationship.
Christina wrote,
"Ant and I have made the difficult decision to separate. [...] We are
grateful for each other and as always, our children will remain our priority."
Christina and Ant's separation apparently came as a surprise to nearly everyone.
After the news broke, Us Weekly and HollywoodLife claimed to hear reports
regarding how Christina's first husband may have reacted to this development,
saying that Tarek El Moussa, quote, "liked the guy [and] is not going to ask nor does he
care what happened [...] and he'll be there to support the kids with the transition."
On that note, let's respect Christina's request for privacy as she and Ant
and their families navigate the future.
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