Disagreements on set. Rumors of infidelity. Multiple cancer scares and infertility challenges.
When did the cracks start to show in Tarek El Moussa and Christina Hall's marriage?
Here's everything you need to know.
Viewers of HGTV's "Flip or Flop" weren't strangers to seeing hosts Christina Hall and Tarek El Moussa
disagree about a home's renovation. However, it seems that there was more behind-the-scenes
tension than the TV network may have wanted to reveal. In a 2018 interview with "Today,"
both Hall and El Moussa were quick to joke about wanting to kill one another on set.
"Oh yeah, there were definitely moments."
"There's special days sometimes."
But well before their alleged blowout in the summer of 2021, the now-divorced pair showed
world-wide audiences they knew exactly how to push each other's buttons, often without remorse.
The sixth season of "Flip or Flop" aired in 2017 during El Moussa and Hall's very public split.
Several episodes in particular foreshadowed the escalating animosity between the struggling
couple. For instance, during the "Beached Bungalow" episode, the couple's battle
of wills is on full display. The audience gets an up close and personal view of the
weakest points of the El Moussa marriage, from miscommunication and unchecked egos.
"This is the floor? That's hideous!"
This doomed combination is perhaps best exemplified by Hall's decision to exclude
El Moussa from the bathroom's proposed design. Hall plows forward with her own preferred plan,
featuring a patterned tile that horrifies El Moussa. Hall refuses to apologize and
insists it has to be done her way, which isn't a particularly shining example of loving compromise.
Tarek El Moussa and Christina Hall likely never wanted to see a headline written about them
that involved police investigating a gun incident at their home. As it so happens,
just such a story broke as they publicly announced their split at the end of 2016.
El Moussa has since appeared on multiple news outlets and has personally described the infamous
police intervention as a misunderstanding. But the once-wed couple seemed to agree on one thing,
and that's the decision to go their separate ways. In a 2017 interview with People,
Hall explained the incident was a breaking point for her marriage, saying,
"It just made me realize that us being separated was healthier for both of us."
The day's dramatic unfolding seemed a heartbreaking display of just how dysfunctional
the seven-year marriage between El Moussa and Hall had become. An alleged disagreement
between the two wound up escalating into El Moussa reportedly grabbing one of his handguns
and jumping his home's fence to go hiking, per Vanity Fair. Importantly, the incident did not
result in any violence or police charges, but made it clear that the relationship had come to an end.
As well as having to go through a high-profile divorce, El Moussa and Hall also had to contend
with much speculation regarding the reason they were splitting. Allegedly,
both El Moussa and Hall had questionable relationships outside their marriage.
Together, the couple told In Touch in 2018,
"Neither of us was involved in a romantic relationship with any third party
prior to our separation, or believes the other was."
But before their split was even made public in 2017,
El Moussa was allegedly connected with the family's 23-year-old nanny, via The Daily Mail.
Hall's choice to date the family's contractor Gary Anderson also caught the media's attention.
According to Us Weekly, Hall first met Anderson in 2015 when he was hired to work on the home
she shared with her then-husband. Though Hall and Anderson publicly confirmed their relationship,
the exact timeline of their coupling has remained under scrutiny. At one time,
an insider reportedly told InTouch that Hall and Anderson had been exchanging
suspicious text messages before Hall separated from El Moussa. Hall has long insisted that her
relationship with Anderson did not begin until after she and El Moussa decided to split up.
Regardless, the quickness with which El Moussa and Hall seemingly moved on with new romantic partners
might hint that there was trouble in their marriage for some time.
"Oh I don't know about that."
2013 brought overnight success for the two reality stars of "Flip or Flop," but it also
ushered in a particularly chaotic time period for Tarek El Moussa. In the span of only one year, El
Moussa received two different and unrelated cancer diagnoses. Soon, the real estate mogul was thrown
into a barrage of chemotherapy, side-effects, surgeries, and other life-saving treatments.
"I was sick for a long time. So for me to be filming again, feeling healthy,
I'm just happy about it."
On top of their real estate investments, family life, and brand new reality series,
El Moussa found himself developing a dependence on steroids as part of
his post-op recovery from testicular cancer. The father of two admitted
that he was overmedicated. As he told "The Dr. Drew Show" podcast,
"I was on Vicodin every day. On top of that, my hormones are off,
I'm on pain meds and narcotics and I'm filming and working.
It was a really rough three, four years. [...] It was a horrifying experience."
El Moussa's medication and health issues understandably
impacted his marriage to Hall. In a conversation with his sister, Angelique,
El Moussa was moved to tears when apologizing for his past behavior, breaking down as he recalled,
"I wasn't a good brother, son, husband, father."
Unfortunately, both El Moussa and his ex-wife, Christina Hall, could not undo the damage.
In the past, both El Moussa and Hall have spoken publicly of their struggle to conceive
their second child during El Moussa's cancer battle. As reported by People,
Hall suffered a traumatizing miscarriage at eight weeks, in addition to two failed rounds of IVF.
And though she successfully carried her son to full-term, Brayden's decelerating heart
rate during labor forced the second-time mom to undergo an emergency C-section.
It would appear that the financial consequences and physical toll of the
couple's fertility procedures were ultimately too much for El Moussa and Hall to bear.
Less than two years after their son's birth, the HGTV stars secretly split.
Reflecting on the difficult time, El Moussa told Us Weekly,
"We were both very busy people with health issues and kids. We didn't fight, we just grew apart."
It turns out that the renovation of El Moussa and Hall's own $2 million California home was
a little more than they'd originally bargained for. As Hall would explain,
the home effectively underwent two renovations when she decided to change
the decor palette partway through the project. In a conversation with People, she revealed,
"The first remodel was about 25 percent in, and it was a totally different look — it was
more of a rustic look. [...] So we just ended up clearing everything out and starting fresh."
It also transpired that the reality stars hired the wrong contractor.
That mistake not only cost them money, but also precious time. As Hall told People,
"We ended up having to move out to a tiny hotel for three months.
Then we lived with my parents for another month."
Ultimately, as El Moussa explained to Dr. Drew,
"There [was] so much going on with TV, and the notoriety, and the finances,
and so many different things happening at one time, and it slowly pulled us apart."
Hosting a reality TV series with your spouse, running a business together,
and splitting parental duties must be a quick way to breed intimacy. But it likely leaves very
little breathing room. Christina Hall reflected on her very public split, telling People in 2018,
"Tarek and I were so tied together on everything: real estate, the show, our children,
our house. It was so stressful, and everyone was worried that it was going to explode."
Understandably, the stress facing Hall and El Moussa became too much to handle.
As Hall would tell People,
"I felt like I was drowning [...] I was doing whatever I could to
stay above water and just get through the day."
Without much free time of their own and while coping with a myriad of responsibilities,
the foundation of El Moussa and Hall's marriage would take a considerable hit. Without a healthy
sense of independence, it makes sense that resentments can fester in any relationship.
Fame isn't for everyone, and there's certainly plenty of stars who have opted to leave the
spotlight in search of a more normal life. It would seem that Hall and El Moussa began
to struggle with reconciling their reality show existence with real life. As Hall told People,
"Like any couple, we had our share of issues, but we went through a lot in a short amount
of time. [...] I was overwhelmed. The tension between me and Tarek was high. We weren't able to
properly communicate anymore. It got to the point where we weren't even driving to set together."
The estranged couple indeed had a harrowing four years,
including cancer diagnoses, drug dependence, fertility struggles, complicated renovations,
and even police interventions. Any one of these life events could put a real wedge
between a husband and wife. As Tarek El Moussa tells it, busyness put a significant strain on
their partnership. In a 2017 appearance on "The Doctors," Tarek explained,
"All these things happened overnight. Cancer, cancer, back surgery.
It just kind of started pushing us apart from one each other."
The life-altering events the couple dealt with in such a short period of time
must have been difficult to wrap their heads around. Sadly, the reality stars
just couldn't salvage their marriage amid the demands of personal hardship.
Life's setbacks and failures have a way of teaching us valuable lessons.
The same is true for the "Flip or Flop" stars. El Moussa said in an exclusive HGTV video,
"What I've learned through all of this
is that communication is the most important thing in the world."
His ex-wife has also learnt the value of honesty in a relationship, as Hall told Good Housekeeping,
"If something is on my mind, you're gonna know. Because Tarek and I lost that communication,
completely, and it's so hard to get it back once it's gone."
Given the many obstacles that came up for these famous exes,
not being able to openly communicate with one another must have started to erode their bond.
Considering all the challenges they had to face and the added stress the spotlight can put on
any relationship, El Moussa and Hall's marriage faltered. When discussing his
failed marriage, Tarek revealed during an appearance on "The Doctors,"
"If we had better communication, we would have had a better relationship."
The "Flip or Flop" hosts have both since remarried other people,
but reflecting on what might have been had their communication been better is inevitable.
Soon after Tarek El Moussa and Christina Hall announced their split in 2016,
an insider revealed what it was really like seeing the couple's marriage up close.
As the anonymous source told People,
"In a lot of ways they just seemed wildly incompatible [...] [Christina] has champagne
tastes and he's a beer-from-a-can kind of guy. And that was okay for a while — they were on
the same page, working together to make it and to do the best with what they had."
However, as the source revealed to People,
"But the stardom from the show, and the money from the show,
meant that [Hall] started to feel like she could finally have some of the finer things in life."
For her part, Hall responded to the report and told Good Housekeeping,
"We definitely have the same taste as far as wanting nice things because we work hard,
so if you're going to say it, at least say 'both of them.' Don't just label me."
Still, the discrepancy between Hall's fine tastes and El Moussa's more conservative
approach was a plot line that was often teased out in "Flip or Flop."
Whether that dynamic was always part of their relationship, and was just a conflict emphasized
to make the show more entertaining remains unknown. It's possible that having such a
fundamentally different set of values could have driven the two stars further apart.
It's one thing to disagree over which color to paint a house, but when difference becomes
the defining element of a partnership, you enter choppy waters. Somewhere along the way, El Moussa
and Hall lost sight of what they shared as a couple, and let what separated them take the lead.
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