Christina Anstead has become one of HGTV's most popular personalities, thanks to the
success of hit renovation series Flip or Flop and Christina on the Coast. But her journey
from anonymity to television stardom has been far from easy. Here's the stunning transformation
of Christina Anstead.
Anstead was born in California's Orange County in 1983. The oldest of two, Anstead has a
sister, Carly, who is ten years younger than her, but, as Anstead wrote on Instagram, they're
"friends for eternity" despite the decade-long age difference.
As a teenager, Anstead attended Canyon High School in Anaheim, and she has kept up with
her high school friends since leaving school behind. According to E! News, in 2017, she
attended an Anaheim Ducks home game at the Honda Center, where a source said she was
joined by "some old friends from high school" during the game.
After high school, Anstead attended San Diego State University, according to Good Housekeeping.
Upon graduating, she wasted no time jumping into the business world by landing a job in
a real estate office, which is where she met the man who would be her future husband and
television co-star.
That man was Tarek El Moussa, an ambitious young realtor who earned his real estate license
when he was just 21 years old, according to his website. Anstead told Entertainment Tonight,
"We met at work and we've always been working together."
"We're able to work together 'cause we're best friends. We love what we do, we love
each other."
Their romance was a whirlwind. In an interview with Good Housekeeping, she explained,
"The day Tarek and I officially started dating, which was October 9th, 2006, we moved in together."
Anstead embraced El Moussa's philosophy of dreaming big. The pair crafted a dream board
that they placed in their office, featuring a wedding ring, an extravagant home with a
pool, a Bentley, a private jet, and, in her words, "some Mercedes" El Moussa had his eye
on. She said,
"The weird part is, by the time I turned 31, we had all of it."
In 2009, the couple got married in a ceremony off the coast of San Diego, California, officially
becoming partners in both life and in business.
Hit hard by the recession of the late 2000s, Anstead was among many in real estate who
were affected when the housing bubble popped. As she and then-husband El Moussa told The
Orange County Register, they were forced to downgrade their lifestyle significantly. Gone
was their home with the mortgage of $6,000 a month; instead, they moved into a $700-per-month
apartment they shared with a roommate.
That was when Anstead first got into house-flipping with El Moussa, buying houses at foreclosure
auctions, fixing them up, and selling them at a profit. Along with their business partner,
the couple purchased their first investment property for a relatively modest $115,000.
After flipping the home and divvying up a $34,000 profit, they kept at it.
Anstead's house-flipping endeavors with her partners were not easy. Sometimes the people
about to be evicted would trash the place before they left; Anstead recalled one property
they purchased in which the residents poured concrete in toilets, shattered windows, and
bashed hardwood floors with a hammer, causing $30,000 in damage.
After bouncing back from the recession with their house-flipping success, El Moussa and
Anstead thought their lives as husband-and-wife flippers would make a great premise for an
HGTV series. According to The Orange County Register, El Moussa decided on a whim to make
a demo tape of the pair, using a borrowed camera and enlisting a friend to edit it.
As Anstead told Good Housekeeping, she was seven months pregnant at the time.
After sending out the demo, the couple received a response from Pie Town Productions, which
produces HGTV hits like House Hunters. The company was interested and signed the pair
to buy, renovate, and flip 13 houses in 13 episodes. The show was titled Flip or Flop,
with the Register revealing the couple was paid $10,000 per episode for that first season.
Anstead told Good Housekeeping that it all happened so quickly she could barely process
it, saying,
"I just remember driving to an auction and thinking there's just no way this is really
going to happen. Then, all of the sudden, HGTV wanted a pilot [later named Flip or Flop],
and the pilot got picked up and it was a series, overnight."
While viewers watched Anstead banter her way through home flips on HGTV with El Moussa
as Flip or Flop grew in popularity, the reality that they faced when the cameras turned off
was very different. Not only was El Moussa being treated for cancer, the two were also
trying to have another baby using in vitro fertilization. In 2014, Anstead became pregnant,
only to suffer a miscarriage. She told People in 2017,
"We went through a lot in a short amount of time."
After that heartbreak, Anstead finally conceived, and in August 2015, she gave birth to a baby
boy, as PopSugar reported. However, what should have been a joyous time was far more fraught
than outsiders may have realized. As Anstead told People, the demands of their business
and a hectic Flip or Flop schedule led her to return to work just four weeks after giving
birth. She admitted,
"It was too soon for me. I was overwhelmed. The tension between me and Tarek was high."
Anstead claimed the communication with her husband had become difficult as they found
themselves drifting apart, adding,
"It got to the point where we weren't even driving to set together."
While Anstead's personal life was filled with the turmoil unleashed by her husband's cancer
battle, a new baby, and a demanding work schedule, Flip or Flop was becoming a major hit for
HGTV.
During the show's second season in 2014, Multichannel News reported that a broadcast of the show
garnered Flip or Flop's highest rating to date, attracting 1.7 million viewers for a
single episode. Not only was that a new record for an episode of Flip or Flop, but it was
also the network's highest-rated primetime episode in a year.
Ratings just kept on growing. Viewership continued to climb, with more than 16 million total
viewers watching Flip or Flop's fourth season. In fact, the show had officially become the
highest-rated cable series in its Thursday night time slot among viewers 25 to 54. There
was no denying that Flip or Flop was quickly becoming one of HGTV's most popular series,
and Anstead was among the network's most recognizable and beloved personalities. Yet in the midst
of all that success, a storm was brewing behind the scenes that threatened everything.
In May 2016, Us Weekly reported that 11 deputies were called to Anstead's home after she and
then-husband El Moussa had an "explosive fight," responding to reports of a, quote, "possibly
suicidal male with a gun." Police seized several weapons from the home. El Moussa later told
police he had no intention of hurting himself.
"I can legally carry a firearm. I live in the canyons, where there's wildlife and bobcats
and mountain lions, and I literally went on a hike."
In December of that year, the couple jointly announced they had separated, saying in a
statement,
"Like many couples, we have had challenges in our marriage. We had an unfortunate misunderstanding
about six months ago and the police were called to our house in an abundance of caution. There
was no violence and no charges were filed."
The statement also revealed they attempted marriage counseling, but had ultimately decided
to call it quits. It concluded with,
"We will continue to work through this process civilly and cooperatively and plan to continue
our professional life together."
Looking back at that turbulent time, Anstead told People she felt completely overwhelmed,
saying,
"I felt like I was drowning. I was just trying to stay above water, just doing whatever I
could to just get through the day."
With Anstead and El Moussa divorced, fans of Flip or Flop were understandably curious
about the fate of the show. While the couple's separation statement indicated they would
"continue [their] professional life together," viewers were wondering how that was going
to work.
At the same time the couple announced their separation, HGTV issued a statement indicating
that, despite whatever was taking place between the show's stars, it was business as usual
for Flip or Flop. According to Us Weekly, the statement read,
"We admire and appreciate Tarek and Christina's great work on Flip or Flop. When it comes
to matters related to their own family, we respect their privacy and honor any decision
that works best for them and their children. HGTV is currently airing episodes of Flip
or Flop and the series will continue production as scheduled."
"We've been doing this a really long time, it's part of who we are and what we do, and
for us to just throw everything away, it just wasn't worth it."
As it turned out, HGTV actually leaned into the couple's split when promoting the 2018
season.
"How was your date?"
"Date? It was good."
"How much did that set you back?"
"Why do you even care?"
"I'm just messing around."
In HGTV's press release at the time, Anstead said,
"It's all new territory. When our marriage fell apart it was more public than we could
have imagined. But we're picking up the pieces and we'll still work together to support our
kids."
When the seventh season of Flip or Flop debuted in 2018, all the off-camera drama that had
been filling the pages of tabloids led to a lot of curiosity about how Anstead and ex
El Moussa would interact after their split. That curiosity led to even bigger ratings,
with HGTV revealing that viewership for Season 7 had risen 18 percent over the previous season.
The co-stars seemed to be even more popular divorced than they were married.
In fact, the show had become so successful that the network announced it was ordering
15 more episodes for that season. The president of HGTV said in the announcement,
"We're eager to see how they continue to run their flipping business, co-parent their children
and start new chapters in their professional and personal lives."
Ironically, the ex-spouses actually got along better after their divorce than they did when
they were married. Anstead told E! News,
"Tarek and I are in a really good place right now."
As she told Good Housekeeping, despite the split, she and her ex still managed to work
well together. She explained,
"We met at work, and we actually probably get along best at work."
At the end of 2017, Christina met British TV host Ant Antstead through mutual friends,
and sparks flew. They were a full-fledged couple when she sent him a sweet Instagram
greeting to mark his 39th birthday in March 2018. December of that year, the couple tied
the knot in a secret "winter wonderland" wedding, according to People. As Anstead later wrote
on Instagram,
"Life has a funny way of letting things fall into place when you least expect it."
With Anstead taking her new husband's name, the two blended their families, with her two
children and his two children from a previous marriage all moving in together into a new
home. She told People,
"All of the kids are so excited. I love all the chaos of a full house."
Meanwhile, the couple had even more news to share when they later revealed they were expecting
their first child together. In September 2019, the Ansteads welcomed a son. She wrote on
Instagram,
"Ant and I are so excited to welcome Hudson London Anstead into the world. Our hearts
are SO full of love and joy!"
After landing a new husband, welcoming a new baby, and buying a new home, Anstead then
moved on to launching her own show for HGTV. While she and ex-husband El Moussa would continue
to film Flip or Flop, she debuted her solo effort, Christina on the Coast, in spring
2019. There was no house-flipping in the new show, which instead focused on her design
business, with Anstead using her flair for creative design to reinvent spaces in clients'
homes.
As HGTV pointed out in its announcement, the show also offered viewers something that Flip
or Flop didn't: a glimpse into her personal life. She told the New York Post,
"I had a lot going on last year, and I thought it would be interesting to show a little bit
more of my real life."
Viewers loved what they saw, and HGTV declared Christina on the Coast to be a ratings smash,
drawing 12 million total viewers in its first season. In August 2019, Anstead took to Instagram
to reveal that the network had ordered a second season, writing,
"SO BEYOND excited."
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