Ty Pennington Has Come A Long Way From His Party-Filled Past

Ty Pennington is known to most people as the energetic host from TLC's "Trading Places," ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," and HGTV's "Rock the Block" and "Ty Breaker." Pennington has spent more than two decades on TV renovating and transforming people's living spaces and lives, along with showcasing his trademark optimism and bright personality — but it has taken a lot of work for him to get to this point. 

The biggest and most daunting project Pennington has ever had to work on has been himself. As Pennington began gaining fame and making more money than he ever had before, his life was beginning to spiral out of control at the same time. Pennington was living a life of heavy drinking and partying and it all came to a head one night in 2007 when Pennington was arrested for a DUI, which served as the wake-up call he needed to start making changes in his life.

In May 2007, Ty Pennington was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Pennington was 42 years old at the time, and in the midst of the fourth season of his popular ABC show, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." According to CBS, Pennington released a statement shortly after the incident, saying, "Under no circumstances should anyone consume alcohol while driving. I could have jeopardized the lives of others, and I am grateful there was no accident or harm done to anyone. This was my wake-up call."

Since then, Pennington has gone on to prove that his DUI being a wake-up call was not just lip-service. On an episode of HGTV star and longtime friend Sabrina Soto's podcast, "Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto," Pennington revealed that he rarely drinks alcohol these days. "It's not that I won't, like on the holidays or whatever, because I love wine, but I just don't party anymore. Like, I don't get out of control to the point that I'm like, you know, just belligerent."

Drinking and partying became things that simply were not fun for Pennington anymore and largely came out of trying to fill the void when overworking himself and losing touch with friends, family, and reality, as he told Soto. "When you lose all of that, you become the loneliest human on the planet. And you look for, like, love in all the wrong places and you get really lost."

In July 2023, Ty Pennington had to undergo emergency throat surgery after developing an abscess in his throat, which served as the catalyst that encouraged him to alter his outlook on life and commit to living a healthy lifestyle for him and his wife, Kellee Merrell. Pennington told Entertainment Tonight in March 2024, "You just don't know when your timecard's gonna get pulled, so wake up, live every single day to the fullest."

Pennington has grown more health-conscious and focused on his physical fitness. In an Instagram post from January 2024, Pennington posted a video of himself exercising and hitting a speed bag. Becoming more health-conscious has not only extended to himself, but is something that he is concerned about with his peers as well and how their vices can also affect them, as he told Soto. "I'm like, 'What the hell is going on?' People gotta just put down the vices, man. You can't smoke and drink (forever)."

Physical fitness is only one aspect of Pennington newfound healthy lifestyle, as he's learned that having a healthy self-image is just as important, "I stopped trying to prove that I'm amazing. I just realized, okay, nobody saw the cool things I was doing... but you know what? I did (do) them, and the people that work with me know. It's sort of like ... (being) cool is when you stop trying to prove that you are cool, or when you stop trying to prove that you have a gift or a talent."