The Tragic Story Of HGTV Star Tarek El Moussa

The following article mentions addiction and mental health issues.

Tarek El Moussa got his real estate license at 21, after realizing his childhood career dream was no longer a possibility. He found quick success — and met his first wife, Christina Haack — as a realtor, but longed for more and decided to pitch a home flipping show to HGTV. Despite never having flipped a home, El Moussa cobbled together a subpar flip in 15 days when HGTV showed interest, and that is how "Flip or Flop" was born. In the years since the show's 2013 debut, El Moussa has appeared in numerous other HGTV programs, including "Flipping 101 w/ Tarek El Moussa," "Tarek's Flip Side," and "The Flipping El Moussas." He is now one of the most visible faces of the network and of the entire home renovation genre.

While El Moussa's television persona exudes positivity and gives the illusion of a relatively charmed life, his real-life experience has been far darker than most casual fans realize. There have been plenty of headlines over the years — particularly related to his divorce, remarriage, and cancers — but El Moussa has also been unafraid to share the tougher parts of his story in interviews, on social media and in his book, "Flip Your Life How to Find Opportunity in Distress — in Real Estate, Business, and Life." The star has shown true vulnerability and bravery by opening up about difficult topics such as depression, anxiety, addiction, cancer, and more. Here is a look at the tragic story of HGTV star Tarek El Moussa.

It is hard to picture Tarek El Moussa doing anything aside from selling real estate or flipping houses, but this was not his original life plan. Before he suffered a significant shoulder injury his freshman year of high school, the future reality star dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player. "I stayed on the team over the next three years, suiting up, shagging balls, and hoping things would get better. But by senior year, I knew my dream had come to an end," he wrote in his book, "Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress―in Real Estate, Business, and Life."

The devastation of his dashed goal led El Moussa into a depression and, ultimately, down a destructive path. "I felt outrageously cheated out of the activity I loved most — and out of the future I'd planned for myself," he wrote. El Moussa may never have made the big leagues, but his love of baseball has remained intact. He now uses his story to help motivate others, and it is not unheard of for baseball analogies to creep into his motivational messages As he wrote in an April 2019 Instagram post, "In baseball, if you swing for a home run and strike out every time eventually you will be defeated and quit!! Instead...stay calm and relaxed and swing for singles and doubles."

After he finally accepted that he wouldn't play baseball in college or the pros, Tarek El Moussa not only didn't know what his next life step was, but he began drinking alcohol excessively. He lived in his mom's garage where he would regularly sleep half the day away. "I slept so much not only because I was drunk but because I hated being awake. I hated having to deal with the inner voice in my head haunting me telling me what a loser I was. I hated myself and I hated my life," El Moussa explained on Instagram in December 2023. "Every day I wallowed away in self-pity and misery."

In a separate Instagram post, El Moussa detailed how he once did 30 shots of vodka in a single day when he was 20. "At 19 my life went downhill in what felt like overnight. I gained 50 pounds, lost my confidence, lost my hope, and became a raging alcoholic. All my drive was gone," he wrote. Not long after his 30-shot day, El Moussa decided to spend 90 days taking real estate seriously. He made $130,000 in commission and that was the start of his big turnaround.

Tarek El Moussa had a string of bad years in the 2010s, and it all started with a thyroid cancer diagnosis in 2013 — the same year that "Flip or Flop" hit the air. A nurse and fan of the show named Ryan Read wrote into producers after she noticed a nodule on El Moussa's neck — a nodule that El Moussa was already very aware of. As he told People. "I actually went to the doctor twice for it, and they said it's nothing. So, once I saw [the note from Read], I was like, 'You know what? I need to get a second opinion.'"

Since El Moussa's ultrasound results were inconclusive, he opted to remove a small portion of the lobe around the lump for a biopsy. When he awoke from surgery, he was told he had cancer. "My doctor ended up removing the entire thyroid and some lymph nodes. I learned that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, and I would need radioactive iodine therapy to kill the remaining cancer cells," El Moussa told Patient Resource. "Because my body was going to give off radiation during and after the treatment, I had to stay away from my wife and three-year-old daughter for about two weeks, then limit my time with them when I came home." It was no doubt a challenging period in the reality star's life, but fortunately, they were able to detect and treat the cancer before it continued to spread.  

After Tarek El Moussa learned his original thyroid cancer was misdiagnosed, he began looking into other health matters. That's when an old testicular exam in his records caught his attention.He soon learned he had testicular cancer, too. 

"I get over to the ultrasound and [the technician and I] are talking and having fun and all of a sudden he got really quiet," El Moussa said to People. "I could tell he was nervous and he was like 'Oh, I'm not a doctor." I said, 'What do you mean?' And he said, 'Are you in pain? I think you're in pain and should go to the emergency room.' Right then, I knew something was wrong. A half hour later they tell me I have cancer and try to sign me up for surgery. That was devastating."

El Moussa had his testicle removed, but still needed to undergo radiation. He and then-wife Christina Haack were told they would have to put having a second child on hold, so they decided to use sperm banking and IVF instead. That led them down a difficult road of failed attempts and miscarriage, all at the same time as El Moussa's health issues. The couple eventually welcomed a son in 2015.

Tarek El Moussa had back-to-back surgeries to handle his cancers, and he went back to work one week later despite feeling terrible. "My hormones were way out of whack, and it really affected my mental state," he shared in a feature for Patient Resource. "Trying to figure out the medications to replace my thyroid hormone was awful. I dealt with fatigue, brain fog, depression, mood swings, anxiety and a rapid heart rate every day." At some point, El Moussa developed the idea that removing his testicle had decreased his testosterone to the point where it was making him fatigued. He went to an anti-aging clinic to seek help, which only ended up making matters worse.

El Moussa was already taking human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) injections every day because he was told that would help. The clinic also prescribed him testosterone, which exacerbated his problems, especially his anxiety and depression. "We determined my testosterone wasn't low, and I was basically getting double what I needed. It created what they call 'roid rage,' and I felt manic and angry," El Moussa wrote. "It turns out the hormone issues were related to the thyroid removal. Again, I was misdiagnosed, and my natural testosterone has never recovered but I manage it through medication." It was not until after El Moussa and Christina Haack split up in 2016 — on the heels of a violent, scary incident — that the star overcame his steroid addiction.

After being treated for thyroid cancer and testicular cancer, Tarek El Moussa struggled with side effects from his surgeries and medications. He also suffered a horrific back injury four months after getting through his second cancer, which then led to a dependency on prescription drugs. It happened when he was playing golf — for the first time in a long time — and slipped several discs in his lower back, which were pinching his sciatic nerve. "I lost 60 lbs., I was on Vicodin every day, my hormones are off, I'm on pain meds and narcotics and I'm filming and working. It's wild. It was a horrifying experience," El Moussa shared on a 2018 episode of "The Dr. Drew Podcast."

By the time he decided to undergo surgery, El Moussa could barely walk or even do things like put on his socks. He relied on eight to 10 painkillers to make it through each day. El Moussa's back surgery was ultimately successful, but it led to a complication in his urethra that required another week-long hospital stay to deal with the blockage. In May 2018, El Moussa re-injured his back and feared having to deal with the same level of struggle. "Last time I hurt my back it took me a year and a half to recover. As of today, I can barely walk...I honestly can't even believe this is happening," he wrote on Instagram in May 2018, alongside a hospital pic.

Tarek El Moussa was at one of his lowest points in 2016. Following his cancer treatments, he was struggling with a dependency on painkillers, a steroid addiction, and a number of physical and mental health issues. What's more, there was a messy domestic altercation that became tabloid fodder after TMZ reported it months later, in December 2016. The actual altercation occurred in May, but it was not widely reported until El Moussa and then-wife Christina Haack publicly announced their split. "We had an unfortunate misunderstanding about six months ago and the police were called to our house in an abundance of caution," they said in a statement released to People. "There was no violence and no charges were filed."

According to TMZ, Haack was visibly upset when police showed up following a report of a "possibly suicidal male with a gun." El Moussa had taken a gun out of a safe and fled the home after a big fight with Haack. Police tracked him down by helicopter, on a hiking trail near their home. "A police officer leaning out of the helicopter pointed a rifle at me. Dust swirled around me from the spin of the blades, and a loudspeaker crackled, 'Get your hands in the air!'" El Moussa wrote in his book. El Moussa has maintained he was just seeking exercise and that the gun was for protection from local wildlife.

As previously noted, the world only found out about Tarek El Moussa's gun incident, which occurred after a fight with his wife, in December 2016. The disclosure was prompted by the announcement of El Moussa's divorce from Christina Haack. When El Moussa and Haack announced the split, the couple shared that they separated shortly after the gun incident, but with hopes of reconciliation. By the time of their end-of-year announcement, they had already concluded that there was no way to repair the damage. They tried counseling in the period of limbo, but to no avail.

El Moussa and Haack first met in 2005, when they were both working at Prudential as real estate agents. They built a friendship so strong that when they started dating the following year, they moved in together the same day as the official start of the relationship. El Moussa and Haack wed in 2009 and welcomed two children together — daughter Taylor in 2010 and son Brayden in 2015. El Moussa officially filed divorce papers in January 2017, and the divorce was finalized a year after that. Though they ended their marriage in 2018, El Moussa and Haack continued working together on their hit series. They also branched out with separate HGTV projects — for example, El Moussa's "Flipping 101 w/ Tarek El Moussa" and Haack's "Christina on the Coast." In May 2024, a new series featuring the exes and their new partners was announced, called "The Flip Off."

Tarek El Moussa was not in a good headspace before his split from Christina Haack and the end of his marriage only propelled him into an increasingly dark place. The star has been open about the mental health struggles he has faced in various portions of his life but has alluded to his post-divorce state of mind being the worst period of crisis he has experienced. "The second I separated from my wife I said, 'Okay it's time to do some soul searching, figure out what's wrong with me.' The worst part before that was I hurt my back. It was the worst experience of my life," El Moussa said on "The Dr. Drew Podcast." "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."

Because he was in such a poor mental state, El Moussa did not feel capable of living on his own after his split. In a January 2024 episode of "The Jeff Fenster Show" podcast, the star shared that he moved into a hallway house after Haack left him. "I didn't trust myself to be alone. That's how bad I was," he said. "The reason I ended up there is because I didn't know where to go and I needed 24-hour care. It was pretty bad because I had lost everything, it felt like, overnight."

Though he was able to get off steroids and painkillers, Tarek El Moussa was still feeling blue before meeting Heather Rae El Moussa, who was then known as Heather Rae Young and appearing as a cast member on Netflix's "Selling Sunset." Tarek has credited Heather with totally changing his outlook on life after a handful of supremely difficult years. "Before Heather, I really lived a different life and I know a lot of you can relate. I was honestly just sad and lonely without her," he wrote on Instagram in October 2023. "It was her who brought me back to life. It was her who taught me to love myself and others again. It was her who made me believe I deserved more. It was her who gave me hope."

It is clear that meeting Heather allowed Tarek to see himself and the world through a new, brighter lens, but prior to meeting her, he was not sure he could ever have another true partnership. "I just never really thought I would open up to someone again. I never thought I would be vulnerable again," El Moussa told People in 2019. "I saw [Young] one day...and right when she smiled, I just lit up inside. I had this feeling that I hadn't felt in like 20 years." After slightly more than two years of dating, Tarek and Heather married in October 2021. In January 2023, they welcomed a son named Tristan.

While Tarek El Moussa settled down with "Selling Sunset" star Heather Rae El Moussa, Christina Haack has had a tougher go at love. She has been married twice since her first divorce, first to "Wheelers Dealers" star Ant Anstead — with whom she welcomed a son — and then real estate agent Josh Hall. Hall was initially set to appear in "The Flip Off" alongside Haack and the El Moussas, with the couples going head-to-head. However, he was dropped from the show when he and Haack both filed for divorce in July 2024. "The Flip Off" is still coming to the air, but it will feature only the three remaining stars. This in itself seems like a miracle, considering the tension that has existed amongst the exes and their partners over the years.

Tarek and Haack have had some challenges since they split. In summer 2021, there were reports of an on-set fight between the pair wherein Tarek called Haack a "washed-up loser." Then there was the infamous incident where Tarek had to pull his new wife away from his ex after a verbal altercation at a kid's soccer game, before himself getting into a fight with Hall. Son Brayden's emergency appendectomy brought the family back together shortly thereafter, and Tarek and Haack have been able to build a friendship. Heather and Haack have even filmed a few funny TikToks together, poking fun at their similarities.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues or mental health, please contact the relevant resources below:

• Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
• Message the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.