Tragic Details About HGTV Star Taniya Nayak's Life

Trigger warning: The following article contains references to suicide.

Taniya Nayak is a renowned interior designer who has become synonymous with HGTV. Whether she's putting her design skills to use on "Designed to Sell," co-hosting "Build It Forward," or serving as one of the mentors on "Battle on the Beach," if you've been watching the popular home improvement channel for a while, you've no doubt seen Nayak in action at one point or another. That being said, her life and career don't begin and end with what you see on HGTV's various reality shows.

Beyond the world of basic cable, Nayak's work has been featured in countless magazines, she owns her own design company that's made it its mission to help restaurants look their very best, and she sits on the advisory board at the esteemed Boston Architectural College — where she herself honed her skills as an interior designer. But while Nayak is undeniably a massive success in her chosen field, she's still only human. And like anyone else, her life certainly hasn't been free of tragedy and heartache — whether it be in the form of a difficult childhood or her struggles to become a mother. However, the HGTV star seems to live by the philosophy that life is all about taking the good with the bad. As Nayak said in a 2024 interview with Boston Man, "You can't have light without dark. You can't have a high without a low. I don't think I would have the same joy with the high without experiencing the low."

Taniya Nayak was born in central India, though moved the United States with her parents when she was just a baby. The HGTV star grew up just outside Boston — more specifically, in the city of Weymouth, Massachusetts. Speaking with Boston Man in 2024, Nayak confessed that while she is proud to have grown up in New England, being an Indian immigrant in a majority-Irish community wasn't always easy for her. "I had a tough time," Nayak said. "And I don't blame [the other kids]. It's just how they were brought up. But I don't regret it, weirdly. Now I look back and it made me stronger. It gave me a greater sense of empathy for others and kept me grounded." She also noted, "I think there is a level of how I grew up that shaped a lot of who I am today."

During a 2023 interview with Defining Hospitality, Nayak also shared that being the child of Indian immigrants came with challenges at home as well. "There were some very strict rules in my house and strong expectations, and so I feel like I was trying to meet those expectations," she said. According to Nayak, her parents didn't always approve of her choices — like when she took up bartending to pay her design school tuition. She says being a bartender was "probably the last thing on earth that my Indian strict parents wanted me to do."

Taniya Nayak has been open about the fertility-related struggles she and husband Brian O'Donnell have faced, and how the couple ultimately had to accept that having kids of their own simply wasn't in the cards for them.

Nayak recounted her experience with in vitro fertilization — or IVF — during an appearance on "Redesigning Life With Sabrina Soto" in 2019. During the podcast, the HGTV star confessed that her expectations regarding the IVF process may have gotten the better of her. "When you finally make that decision that you're ready, you think it's gonna just happen by the fact that you thought about it," she said, "and then you wake up the next morning, and you're gonna be pregnant. ... When you make that decision, you're like, 'It's gonna be a piece of cake, no problem.'" Nayak also had high hopes based on the fact that neither her mother nor her sister had ever had any fertility issues. "So, I thought, 'Hey, the day we decide is gonna be the day it happens.' I was so wrong," she recalled.

All told, Nayak was in and out of the fertility clinic to try and get pregnant via IVF on seven separate occasions, but it simply didn't take. She also shared that the arduous process tested her relationship with O'Donnell — but that they ultimately formed a stronger bond because of it, and were able to come to terms with the reality of their situation.

In an October 2014 Facebook post, Taniya Nayak opened up about losing a close friend of hers — a man by the name of Jason — to suicide four years prior. The two were apparently quite close, as Nayak is the godmother of Jason's daughter. In addition to his daughter, Jason was survived by his wife and son. In her post, Nayak remembered her friend as having a "special zest for life" prior to his tragic passing.

Nayak added that the depression her friend dealt with "was so deep," though "undetectable" to the people who cared about him. In turn, she took the time to remind anyone who may be dealing with depression that they don't have to suffer in silence. "Please know that if you feel alone, you are not," she wrote. "There are more people than you can ever even imagine that care and that love you and that will feel your absence everyday if you're gone." Nayak also provided a link to a suicide prevention website.

According to the World Health Organization, five percent of adults were estimated to suffer from depression to some degree as of March 2023. At the time, the organization explained that suicide was the fourth leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 29. The WHO says that suicide is now the third leading cause of death among people in that age range as of August 2024.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.