Tragic Details About HGTV Star Carmeon Hamilton

Over the years, HGTV has made household names out of design professionals, who have not only kept us entertained with their style prowess but their stellar personalities, too. It's not just the stunning homes of HGTV stars that keep us coming back time and time again. We're just as invested in who they are off-screen as well. In recent years, it's Carmeon Hamilton that's kept us guessing. The designer turned TV star first rose to prominence as the winner of the competition show "Design Star: Next Gen" and seemed destined for greatness, but her debut show "Reno My Rental" only lasted six episodes before disappearing in 2021.

Ever since then, fans have been eager to see more of Hamilton on screen, and HGTV appeared to listen, announcing a new show for her called "Turn Your House Around" that was set to air in 2024, according to Country Living. It's fair to say that Hamilton's TV career hasn't been easy, and has probably been disrupted by issues in her personal life. In 2021, the same year that "Reno My Rental" premiered, Hamilton suffered a devastating loss that turned her world upside down. 

It's not the first time that the talented host has had to face tragic circumstances, but her thousand-kilowatt smile does a great job keeping her secrets well hidden. Let's take a look at Hamilton's heartbreaking story and what makes her rise to stardom even more inspiring.

Sometimes, getting to where you want to be means taking a few twists and turns along the way. Growing up, Carmeon Hamilton had always taken an interest in design, helping her mother decorate her childhood home and taking note of the styles that she pulled together. However, it took Hamilton a while to realize that she had a true passion for design. Instead, she worked hard at school and on the basketball court, so much so that she was offered several scholarships to colleges. She opted to pick the University of Central Arkansas.

"I chose not to play basketball, but I didn't want to stray too far away from the environment of sports. Physical therapy seemed like a good fit for me at the time," Hamilton said in an interview with UCA Magazine later on. However, despite a promising start, the future TV star ended up losing her scholarship after the first year. According to her, she overloaded herself early on by enrolling in intense classes. Her aim, she explained, was to graduate in four years and move on.

Hamilton was forced to take a resident assistant job to help cover the cost of her tuition. While it was undoubtedly a difficult setback, Hamilton made the most out of the position. She was afforded her own room as part of the job and threw herself into designing it — the rest was history. 

In 2011, long before Hamilton made her TV debut, she lost her mother, Sheila Burgess, to breast cancer. Hamilton, pictured above as a baby with her mom and sibling, detailed the loss in a blog post on her website at the time. In the candid and beautifully written piece, Hamilton explained that her mother was first diagnosed with the disease five years prior to her death, going on to have several reoccurrences. At the time of her final reoccurrence, the family wasn't overly scared — her mother had been diagnosed with stage 4 previously, only for the cancer to disappear.

However, this time, it was a different story. The designer was able to work remotely, so she could be with her mother during her final months. "Although my family and I no longer feared cancer, we never thought that its horrible effects would take hold so quickly," explained Hamilton, before revealing that her mom was rushed to hospital in intense pain in July 2011 and never came out again. "My family lost its backbone. My son lost his GiGi. I lost my mom. My mom. Shelia Burgess."

In a memorial post in 2023, Hamilton paid tribute to her mother once more, writing, "Everything happens for a reason. Losing her to breast cancer was a loss of a piece of me, but what filled it later has made me the person I am today."

Even the richest HGTV stars will tell you that making it big in the design world isn't easy. Any creative industry can be hard to get into and even harder to carve out a good living. Sometimes, it takes a lot of falling down before finally finding your place. Carmeon Hamilton knows that first-hand! In the same interview with UCA Magazine we discussed earlier, Hamilton explained that she didn't have the best of luck when she first started out in the business. "I got fired as a design consultant because I stunk at sales," Hamilton said. "I would tell clients not to buy certain things because it wasn't worth their money."

Of course, businesses want clients to part with their money, so it's understandable that Hamilton got the boot. However, she was just trying to be honest and make sure that buyers had real connections with the pieces they chose for their homes. "The way we feel in an environment can affect how much money we spend, how our food tastes, how much fun we have," she explained. 

This career hiccup may have been unsettling for Hamilton at the time, but it ultimately led her on to bigger and better things, proving that when one door closes, another is about to open.

In 2021, just over 10 years after losing her mother, Carmeon Hamilton was dealt yet another devastating blow. Her husband, Marcus Hamilton, was killed suddenly when he was hit by an intoxicated driver while out on his motorbike. The couple, who shared one son, had been together since college. Hamilton shared the heartbreaking news on her Instagram page alongside a photo of her husband smiling. 

She wrote, "I'm no stranger to loss, but this loss brings something beyond pain. Something I can't describe. I'm now missing a major part of myself, and that void seems to grow more and more every second." A month after Marcus' death, Carmeon shared the above image of the pair smiling in the kitchen alongside the caption, "One month down ... a lifetime to go 🖤#iloveyououtloud." 

The pair had been together for 15 years, and Marcus frequently appeared on Hamilton's Instagram feed. In a post shared a few months before his death in May 2021, Hamilton gushed over her love, saying, "Meeting this man is the absolute best thing that's ever happened to me! We're coming up on our 15th year together and 10th year of marriage, and I can't wait to marry him all over again in a couple [of] months!!! I hope you guys are ready for this planning journey!!! It's going to be epic!!!! 🙌🏾 💍 👫🏾." Whether they got to renew their vows before Marcus' death is unclear. 

Carmeon Hamilton's "Reno My Rental" might be among the best HGTV shows that were canceled too soon, but that hasn't stopped her passion for design. In fact, one of the star's biggest passion projects is her home, but even that has bittersweet memories. She and her late husband, Marcus Hamilton, looked at over 20 properties before finally finding their forever residence. "I just knew this was the place we'd put down roots and raise our son," Hamilton said in a piece written for Drew & Jonathan.

Together, Hamilton and her husband made the place their own and spent over six years redesigning it. However, despite having her dream home and her TV career starting to take off, Marcus' tragic death turned her life upside down. Hamilton admitted, "Suddenly, I was missing a major part of myself, our family, and our home. It was an empty space that grew bigger with every second that passed."

Marcus' death caused a huge void, and Hamilton was now living in the home they made together as a single mom. People kept asking her if she would move, explained Hamilton, but Hamilton opted to stay in the hopes of passing the property to her son in the future. "What I will not do: make it a shrine. My intention is to continue loving our home and making new memories, all while honoring Marcus in the space we created," said the star. 

Everyone who's ever lost someone knows that grief comes in inexplicable waves, catching you out at the strangest times when you least expect it. It's no secret that Carmeon Hamilton and Marcus Hamilton had a strong, loving relationship, and when he died in tragic circumstances at a young age, it rocked her world. A month after Marcus died, Hamilton took to X, formerly Twitter, to admit that she was struggling to get past the loss — and understandably so. 

"Today was the day I decided to tackle laundry. It didn't dawn on me until I was in the middle of folding Marcus's clothes that this was actually the last time I'd be doing his laundry. This must be one of those 'waves' I keep hearing about," she wrote. Her followers took to the comments to show their support, proving that the internet can be kind when it needs to be.

It's clear from Hamilton's tribute posts to her husband in the years that followed his death that moving on is a long, difficult, and virtually impossible process for Hamilton, who remains dedicated to Marcus, their son, and the life they built together.