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Most kids would be lucky to get a hand-me-down Toyota Camry for their first car. But when it came time for HGTV stars Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack to buy their teen daughter her first vehicle, they went for something a bit more extravagant. 

In August, Tarek and his ex-wife Christina gave their oldest child, Taylor, the keys to a $150,000 BMW X5 M ahead of her 16th birthday.

“What’s more of a surprise… the car for Taylor or the fact that the three of us actually pulled this off?,” Tarek’s current wife Heather Rae El Moussa captioned an Instagram video of Taylor receiving the gift. “The car is so well deserved, we love you so much Tay.”

Tarek, Christina, and Heater received plenty of criticism online for the six-figure present. But the Flip or Flop star isn’t apologizing for the extravagant gift. 

“You know she got a 4.2 GPA, she was MVP of her freshman soccer team, she’s an absolute fantastic kid,” he said during an appearance on the latest episode of Money Rehab With Nicole Lapin. “And [she] didn’t just get it, she actually earned it, and if you ask me she deserved it. Because she worked really really hard and she didn’t ask for that car. It was more of a surprise.”

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The real estate investor added that the BMW was a safe car, which made him feel good. 

“That thing is built like a tank,” he said. 

Tarek and Christina – who now star in the HGTV competition series The Flip Off – have the means to afford the vehicle, he said, sharing that his daughter also has investments. The gift was mostly about giving Taylor something he never could have imagined receiving as a teen.

“So this kid, she’s grown up around things,” he said. “When I grew up I didn’t have anything. So I’m obsessed with things because I never had things. She’s always had things so she looks at things different than I look at things.

“And if she was gonna be spoiled brat she probably wouldn’t have got the 4.2 GPA and she probably wouldn’t have been MVP of our soccer team she probably wouldn’t have done the extra coaching,” he continued. “So for me this is a reward for for all the work she’s done and it’s something that, honestly, I more gave it to her than her asking for it. Because she would have been happy with the used Honda.”

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