Tarek El Moussa Revealed He Could ‘Barely Walk’ After the ‘Trauma’ of His Divorce From Christina Haack
Christina Haack and Tarek El Moussa famously divorced while filming their HGTV show Flip or Flop. The house flippers continued working together during and after their divorce, finally walking away from the show after 10 seasons. El Moussa revealed that he had so much “trauma” after the divorce that he could “barely walk.” Here’s what both stars said about the end of their marriage.
Christina Haack and Tarek El Moussa continued filming ‘Flip or Flop’ together throughout their divorce
Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack married in 2009, years before they rocketed to TV fame. They had two children together, a daughter named Taylor, born in 2010, and a son named Brayden, born in 2015.
The couple shared a real estate business until 2008, when the economic crisis forced them to move from a $6,000/month home into a $700/month apartment (per Redbook). They started flipping houses, and El Moussa sent an audition tape of their first flip to HGTV. The video launched Flip or Flop, which began in 2013 and ran for 10 seasons.
The show may have been life-saving for El Moussa, who learned he had cancer thanks to a fan’s concern. A Flip or Flop viewer noticed a lump on the HGTV star’s throat and reached out to producers. El Moussa was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, two months later, testicular cancer.
He has said that stress from cancer treatment and the TV show negatively impacted his relationship. El Moussa and Haack were legally divorced in 2018. They continued filming Flip or Flop after separating, but the show finally came to an end in March 2022.
Tarek El Moussa said he could ‘barely walk’ after all the ‘trauma’ of his divorce from Christina Haack
HGTV star Tarek El Moussa opened up about his divorce from Christina Haack in an interview for The Dr. Drew Podcast.
“Let’s just be honest, it was awful,” he told Dr. Drew (via E! News). “I mean, there was more PR about our divorce than any divorce I think I’ve ever seen. I mean, it was wild, on every single magazine, on every news outlet, it was just beyond me.”
He said after financial struggles, his battle with cancer, and the divorce, he felt “broken.” “I’ve had a lot of different struggles in my life,” El Moussa said. “Financial struggles, personal struggles … just a whole lot of struggles, and I feel like I’m finally in a place … like 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.”
The ‘Christina on the Coast’ star revealed that she felt like she was ‘drowning’ amid the end of her marriage
Christina Haack echoed Tarek El Moussa’s sentiments about their divorce in an interview with People in July 2018. She shared that she felt like she was “drowning” at the end of their marriage.
“I felt like I was drowning,” Haack said. “I was doing whatever I could to stay above water and just get through the day.”
She said her life was so entangled with El Moussa’s, they didn’t know how their family and businesses could continue after separating.
“A lot of people were thinking, ‘What’s going to happen?’ Tarek and I were so tied together on everything: real estate, the show, our children, our house,” the Christina on the Coast star explained. “It was so stressful, and everyone was worried that it was going to explode.”
Now, Haack and El Moussa are both remarried to different partners, and they share custody of their two children. They also have separate spinoff shows on HGTV.
