What We Know About HGTV Star Alison Victoria's Romance With Brandt Andersen
Throughout her many years on HGTV, Alison Victoria's love life has mostly been kept secret. She's instead chosen to point the cameras toward her Chicago renovations on "Windy City Rehab" and her redesign tips and tricks on "Rock the Block." While we know that Victoria was previously married to Luke Harding, the HGTV star has since gone public with a new relationship.
On June 7, Victoria appeared at the 2024 Daytime Emmy Awards with her new partner Brandt Andersen, taking to Instagram on June 12 to share pictures from the event. The snapshots show the former "Kitchen Crashers" host in a bold designer gown while her beau wears a cream-colored suit jacket and black slacks. Together, the adoring lovebirds make quite the couple, gazing into one another's eyes and posing in a familiar embrace.
"My 🤍" the HGTV star captioned the post. "'Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.' – Rumi." The occasion marked the relationship's debut, with Victoria's post making the love affair Instagram official. While the renovator may keep her romances close to the chest, there are a few things we know about the relationship between Alison Victoria and Brandt Andersen.
The duo commented on their romance
Even though Alison Victoria keeps her love life primarily away from HGTV cameras, with even her ex-boyfriend's million-dollar rescue staying behind-the-scenes, the renovator and her beau opened up about their budding romance in an interview with Us Weekly. "He is the most amazing human I've ever met," Victoria said. "I love that everybody already knew how amazing he was. And now I could just be so proud to be next to him."
Brandt Andersen provided some insight into the start of the love affair, explaining to the same outlet that he and Victoria were friends before their romantic relationship. "I have no friends who I laugh with like I did with her," he said. "It just became something more because we just love being with each other." Good times appear to be a staple for the duo, with this aspect of their relationship reflected in Victoria's first-ever mention of her boyfriend.
Fans were quick to connect Andersen to a client-created painting that caught Victoria's eye on an episode of "Ugliest House in America." "That looks like my boyfriend," Victoria said about the wild-eyed, messy-haired figure featured in the painting. "He's gonna hate me, but there you are... lover." By the end of the episode, after Victoria and host Retta humorously realized the boyfriend-look alike was actually a woman, the "Windy City Rehab" host was able to purchase the artwork from the homeowner. Overall, we're sure that Andersen and Victoria shared quite the laugh about the artwork shenanigans.
Brandt Andersen has a busy career of his own
Beyond his relationship with Alison Victoria, Brandt Andersen is known for his work as an activist and filmmaker, with these two passions often overlapping in his professional life. Not only is the Florida native the co-founder of the REEL Foundation, a nonprofit that joins humanitarian work with filmmaking, but his experiences working in refugee camps fueled his feature-length directorial debut.
"I started going over to Turkey and Greece right during the Arab Spring when refugees were leaving Syria because they were being forced out and I felt like there were just ways I could help," Andersen told Deadline. "I'd been trained for search and rescue and I had helped to bring in aid and doctors to Haiti after the earthquake." It was these experiences that laid the foundation for the 2024 film "The Strangers' Case," which follows five families grappling with the effects of the Syrian Civil War.
"This is a true, authentic experience of what these people are going through," he told Euro News about the movie. "We have to make some changes, and I want people to see the film because I want them to be able to help." Outside of this major career milestone, Andersen has executive producer credits on over 25 films, including star-studded titles like "Lone Survivor" and "American Made." The director doesn't appear to share much of his personal life with the public, but his relationship with HGTV star Alison Victoria definitely seems to have captured media attention.