Spring 2009: Tarek and Christina El Moussa are married. September 2010: The El Moussas' first child, a daughter named Taylor Reese, is born. April 2013: The couple's show Flip or Flop premieres on HGTV. August 2015: Their son, Brayden James, is born. May 2016: Christina and Tarek privately separate, and publicly separate in December. January 2018: Christina and Tarek's divorce is finalized. May 31, 2018: The first season of Flip or Flop airs since their separation. December 22, 2018: Christina marries Ant Anstead and changes her name to Christina Anstead.
HGTV
There's a reason so many of HGTV's series feature husband-wife duos: It's not just the beautiful transformations but the personal moments along the way that make home renovations so much fun to watch. But what happens when the marriage ends? If it's Tarek and Christina El Moussa, the show goes on.
In 2016, the couple split after seven years of marriage. Still, they continue to work together on Flip or Flop. The first season, filmed after their breakup, premiered in May and was so well-received that HGTV ordered a sequel. Season 8 is expected this spring, along with Christina's new solo show, Christina on the Coast, which will offer a glimpse into Christina's life with her new husband, Ant Anstead. We look back at the El Moussa's relationship timeline and what led to their divorce.
Christina and Tarek met
It's no surprise that the El Moussas met through their shared love of real estate: According to HGTV, Tarek earned his real estate license at the tender age of 21 and gained professional experience selling mansions. Similarly, Christina (then Christina Meulsinghe Haqq) also began working in real estate after college.
“We met at a real estate company and started a relationship while working together,” Christina explained in an old promotional video for the show they later started.
Christina and Tarek get married
In the spring of 2009, Christina, then 26, and Tarek, then 28, were married on Coronado Island in San Diego, California.
But just as the El Moussas' relationship was starting to take off, the effects of the housing bubble burst began to spread across the country, and the newlyweds embarked on their next career, flipping foreclosed and distressed homes around Orange County, California.
“We work together because we're best friends,” Tarek said in the promo. “We love what we do and we love each other.”
Around this time, in September 2010, they welcomed their first child, a girl named Taylor Reese.
How Christina and Tarek were discovered
Flip or Flop, Season 7
While some HGTV couples found them through social media or blogs, the El Moussas took the matter into their own hands. “We had just started flipping houses and we took a leap of faith and emailed a production company,” Tarek told CountryLiving.com in 2016. “They liked us and asked us to send them our home videos. We sent them in and they loved it. A year and a half later, HGTV had us doing a pilot.”
But their success didn't last long: “Halfway through season one, the show was almost canceled because someone higher up at HGTV thought it would fail,” he continued. “It didn't fail.”
That's an understatement: By 2016, over 2.5 million people had watched Flip or Flop, and it has since spawned several spinoffs.
Fighting Cancer and Infertility
Shortly after the show began, the couple faced some challenges in their personal lives: Tarek was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and then testicular cancer shortly thereafter, which he kept secret, and he underwent radiation treatments while Christina faced her struggle to conceive through IVF.
In 2014, Christina had a miscarriage. She was able to get pregnant again, but, as she told People magazine in 2015, “I had to be very strict” with her – she couldn't walk, work or lift anything heavier than a bottle of milk, including the couple's young daughter. “We did everything we could to make this pregnancy work.”
Meanwhile, Tarek suffered serious back injuries and both were bedridden.”[His recovery] “It was two months of torture,” Christina said.
As Tarek recently revealed, his recovery actually took a year and a half. “I lost 50 pounds and was taking copious amounts of painkillers to dull the pain,” he explained in an Instagram post. “I can honestly say that those medications had a huge impact on my mental and physical state and changed who I am as a person.”
Their son, Brayden James, was born in August 2015, and Christina returned to work just a month later. “It happened way too soon for me,” she told People magazine in another interview last year. “I was overwhelmed.”
“Tensions between Tarek and I were rising,” she continued. “We couldn't communicate properly anymore. We couldn't even get in the car to go to set together.”
Christina and Tarek break up
After seven years of marriage, the couple quietly separated in May 2016, but it wasn't until a few months later in December that their separation became public, followed by a gun incident that spring.
“There was an unfortunate misunderstanding about six months ago and police were called to our home as a precaution,” Christina and Tarek explained in a statement. “No violence occurred and no charges have been filed.”
Apparently, Tarek had left the house and was carrying a gun, which led people to think he “might have attempted suicide,” but Tarek later denied this.
“There's big wildlife there – mountain lions, bobcats, rattlesnakes,” he explained on Today . “I went out hiking to scout the trails. It was no big deal. I didn't understand. It was really being grossed out.”
Christina and Tarek's divorce
In January 2017, Tarek officially filed for divorce, and the divorce was finalized a year later in January 2018. In April, Christina put her family's former mansion on the market, selling it after just one month.
In November 2017, Christina began dating Ant Anstead, and they married in December 2018. Christina and Tarek both own new homes, and of course, the HGTV stars share custody of their children and continue to work together.
Why did Christina and Tarek get divorced?
“Like any couple, we had our issues,” Christina explained to People magazine, “but we went through a lot in a short amount of time.”
According to Tarek, being in the public eye hasn't made things any easier.
“I'll be honest with you, it was awful,” he said on the Dr. Drew podcast. “I think our divorce had more publicity than any divorce I've ever seen. It was huge. It was in every magazine, in every news outlet, and it was something I just couldn't comprehend.”
And yet they bravely returned to the spotlight last season.
“This is whole new territory,” Christina said in a press release. “The breakdown of our marriage was more public than we could have ever imagined, but we have picked up the pieces and continue to work together to raise our children.”
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Taysha Murtaugh was the lifestyle editor at CountryLiving.com.