HGTV Star Tarek El Moussa's Complete Transformation

It's no secret that HGTV has produced a seemingly endless stream of unlikely celebrities, ranging from "Property Brothers" stars Drew and Jonathan Scott, to gruff-but-lovable Canadian contractor Mike Holmes. Easily among the network's most popular personalities is Tarek El Moussa, who sprang to fame alongside his then-wife, Christina Haack, on their HGTV mega-hit house-flipping home-renovation show "Flip or Flop."

The runaway success that the couple experienced via HGTV opened up their lives in ways they never could have imagined. That sudden fame also brought about added pressures that caused pre-existing cracks in their marriage to widen, resulting in their split — while remaining on-air partners on the show, a weird and stressful experience that ultimately resulted in the series' demise. 

He's had his ups and downs since then, a tumultuous time in the spotlight that's included a divorce, some health scares, a new romance, and a frightening police incident along the way. It's been a wild ride to be sure, and the finish line is still far in the distance. To find out more, read on to experience HGTV star Tarek El Moussa's complete transformation.

Tarek El Moussa was born in 1981, in Long Beach, California. His parents settled there after meeting in Europe. As El Moussa wrote in a 2019 Facebook post, "Growing up my parents inspired me on a daily basis!! They both moved here from different countries in search of 'The American Dream.'"

In a 2018 interview with Country Living, El Moussa spoke about his parents' respective backgrounds. "I'm half Middle-Eastern, so it comes from Middle-Eastern descent," he explained of his surname. "My dad was raised Catholic in the Middle East in Lebanon and then Egypt. My mom's from Belgium and my dad moved to Europe when he was in his late teens." 

That blending of heritages shaped the youngster while growing up in America. He was raised without a lot of material wealth, and following his parents' divorce, he split his time between his mom's place in Long Beach and his father's home in Buena Park, an upscale town in Orange County. "Growing up in Buena Park, California as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be successful! I constantly saw nice, expensive things that I wanted, but I realized I didn't have the tools and resources I needed to have nice things of my own one day," he wrote in a 2020 Facebook post. That desire to make money ultimately pushed him on a path toward HGTV ... eventually.

Seeking to make his fortune, Tarek El Moussa saw a huge opportunity in the Southern California real estate market during the early 2000s. He was just 21 years old when he attained his real estate license. Success, however, did not come immediately. In a video he shared on Instagram, he reminisced about his early days in real estate, when he was so broke that he lived in the garage of his mom's place in Long Beach. 

"I knew that that wasn't the life for me and that I was meant to do more," he wrote in the caption. "So that's when I started taking real estate serious and decided to work harder then ever before for 90 days straight ... 90 days later I made around $130,000 in commission selling houses and never looked back."

Early on, El Moussa learned a huge lesson that flipped his perspective, making him realize he should be buying houses and flipping them for a profit, not brokering deals for other buyers and sellers. As he told Pallazzo, he made only a few thousand dollars on a property that he spent nearly a year trying to sell... only to watch someone else make a lot more money off of it. "Then, the person I sold the house to, painted it, cut the grass, put it back on the market and made about $130,000," he recalled. "That was the exact moment that I realized I was on the wrong side of the equation and that I needed to be an investor." 

As a young man making his mark in real estate, everything changed for Tarek El Moussa when he met future spouse Christina Haack. They were both in their early 20s when they began working together at Prudential. "We met in a real estate office, so we started our relationship working together," she recalled in an episode of "Flip or Flop," revealing how their personal and professional lives became immediately intertwined. 

"The day Tarek and I officially started dating, which was October 9, 2006, we moved in together," she told Good Housekeeping. During those early years, both their romance (they tied the knot in 2009) and their house-flipping business were going great. When the global financial crisis hit in 2007, however, it all came to a grinding halt. He was forced to become even more creative. "I had no money, nothing, so I would just pull up all these different examples of potential properties that could have been flipped and share them with friends, family, business people, and everyone I knew, and finally after asking everybody, I got some people to invest," he told Pallazzo.

While Tarek El Moussa and wife Christina Haack were growing increasingly successful at flipping houses, they attended a real estate convention in Las Vegas. It was there that they met a fellow realtor who hosted his own local TV show, showcasing the homes he was selling. "I thought that was smart," El Moussa told Pallazzo, recognizing the value of what was essentially a televised calling card. 

When they returned home, he continued thinking about television, theorizing that the house-flipping they were doing would make a great hook for a TV show. "I Googled production companies and came across Pietown Productions. They were accepting casting submission on their website and I sent along our bio and photos," El Moussa recalled. The company was intrigued by his pitch, and in 2011 invited him to send some video of what they did in order to gauge how the couple's renovation exploits would play on camera. "We documented our very first flip," he said, "and the rest is history."

They began filming the first season of what became "Flip or Flop," quickly learning that renovating houses was one thing, while doing it in front of a camera crew was something else entirely. "It's a lot of stop and go," their contractor, Israel Battres, told the Orange County Register. "We're ready to rock 'n' roll, and they're like, 'Can you not hammer loudly,' or, 'Can you do some nice demolition.'"

"Flip or Flop" became an out-of-the-gate hit, quickly catching on with HGTV viewers. In 2013, one of those viewers sent Tarek El Moussa an email after noticing a concerning lump on his neck. "I'm shooting my show. I'm returning emails and text messages. I'm busy with work. And then I get the email from the nurse in Texas," El Moussa recalled during an interview with "Chasing the Cure." "This is not a joke. I am a registered nurse," the email began. "I've been watching 'Flip or Flop.' I noticed that Tarek, the host, has a large nodule on his thyroid and he needs to have it checked out."

Shaken, El Moussa saw his doctor. That led to a diagnosis of stage-three thyroid cancer, resulting in the surgical removal of his thyroid and lymph nodes. Meanwhile, that same year he was also diagnosed with testicular cancer. 

Experiencing these health crises in the midst of the explosive success of "Flip or Flop" was disorienting, to say the least. "I was facing two different cancers and when you're staring death in the face, it makes you question who you are, where you're from and where you're going," he reflected in an interview with Pallazzo, explaining how his illness put everything else in perspective. "I've come to realize that time is limited and it's very important to capitalize on every moment we have on this planet," he mused.

On May 23, 2016, real-life drama unfolded at the home of Tarek El Moussa and wife Christina Haack. According to the police report, she'd feared for his safety after he left their home, armed with a handgun, after an argument. The Orange County Sheriff's Department responded to her 911 call, and located El Moussa with help from a helicopter and escorted him back home. He insisted to officers that he went on a hike to clear his head, bringing the gun in case he encountered any dangerous wildlife — and that he was shocked and surprised to be apprehended by police

As he later wrote in his memoir, "Flip Your Life," that fraught incident marked the end of their marriage. "For the next several hours, I sat on a cooler on my driveway, handcuffed," he wrote of the incident in an excerpt published by People. "That was the very last time we were together as a family: with Christina walking down the driveway, crying, and me sitting there in handcuffs, asking myself, 'What in the world is going on?'"

A few months later, they issued a joint statement to Us Weekly, announcing they'd split. "Together, we have decided to separate while we reevaluate the future of our marriage," the statement read.

Christina Haack began legal proceedings to divorce Tarek El Moussa in January 2017, with the divorce finalized the following year. They may have gone their separate ways personally, but chose to keep their televised golden goose alive by soldiering on with "Flip or Flop" after their split. "Flipping houses put us in the spotlight," El Moussa told viewers in a seventh-season episode, as reported by Business Insider. "But when our marriage fell apart, it was more public than we could have ever imagined," Haack added, with her ex noting, "If flipping houses was tough before, now the pressure is really on."

As it turned out, the tension viewers that HGTV viewers saw between the two was only the tip of the iceberg. "Let's just be honest, divorce is not easy," El Moussa said during a 2024 appearance on "Fox and Friends." "But showing up and filming with someone you had just separated from was very, very difficult, and of course, I was still in love with her at the time." Making matters even more complex was Haack's 2018 marriage to Ant Anstead. "It was pretty difficult watching her get remarried and have a baby," he admitted. "So, there were just some really, really tough years ..." 

The stress of that situation eventually became too much to handle. "Flip or Flop" ended its run in 2022 after 10 seasons. 

After the end of "Flip or Flop," Tarek El Moussa and his ex-wife each launched their own solo house-flipping series for HGTV. Christina Haack launched "Christina on the Coast," and El Moussa tackled his own series, "Flipping 101 with Tarek El Moussa." In his show, he took all the lessons he'd learned from his many flips to help novice house-flippers avoid pitfalls when embarking on their own projects. 

"I'm really excited about the project because it takes everything I love — investing in real estate and TV — and it's all in one format where I get a chance to really help people out who are new to flipping houses," El Moussa told USA Today when promoting the new series ahead of its 2019 debut.

In that interview, he also admitted that he'd come to terms with having his marriage implode under the harsh glare of the media spotlight. "Going through a public divorce was the absolute worst thing in the world ... and I used to hate it," he said, explaining that he'd come to appreciate a silver lining. "Now I embrace the fact that people know all about me," he added.

While discussing "Flipping 101" with USA Today, Tarek El Moussa also touched on another new development in his life: his budding romance with Heather Rae Young, known for being a member of the cast of Netflix home-selling reality series "Selling Sunset." "I officially have a girlfriend. She's absolutely amazing. It's new, it's exciting, we're having fun," he said, conceding that he had reached a point where he'd felt that falling in love was something he wouldn't experience again. "I never thought I would be in this position again, finding romance or having a girlfriend," he mused.

El Moussa and Young subsequently got engaged, and in 2021 they got married. "We're best friends, we're true soulmates, and our love is so rare and so special," Young told People. "It's the love I've always dreamed of my whole life."

The couple's fans were able to share the joy, courtesy of a television special chronicling the weeks leading up to the nuptials. As Young explained to People, however, deciding to open that intimate experience to television cameras for that special — "The Big I Do" — wasn't a decision that came immediately. "So we actually went back and forth for months deciding," she said. Ultimately, their yearning for privacy was trumped by a desire to share their big day with the world. "We want people to see the journey of our love and our wedding and bring people into our lives," she added.

Newlyweds Tarek and Heather Rae El Moussa (née Young) cemented their love with the launch of their own HGTV Show together, "The Flipping El Moussas." Speaking with E! News in 2023, Tarek was adamant that his new show was not simply a rehash of "Flip or Flop," but added a lot of nuance not seen in the original series. "'The Flipping El Moussas,' yes, it's about the house itself," he explained. "But outside of that, it shows people what it's like to run a house flipping operation. It shows you behind the scenes of what it looks like to run an actual business that's out there flipping houses." He also pointed to his wife's flair for design, which he said would be at the forefront of the new show, as well as the luxe nature of the homes themselves. "One of the things that really makes our show different from past shows is the level of homes that we're doing," he explained. "The homes are higher caliber, more high-end."

Meanwhile, Heather pointed out that "The Flipping El Moussas" offered an insiders' look inside their romance. "You see the love of our relationship shine through," she gushed. Much like his first HGTV series, "The Flipping El Moussas" proved to be popular with viewers. In July 2023, HGTV announced plans to renew the show for a second season, expanding to 14 episodes.

During his first marriage, Tarek El Moussa became the father of two children, daughter Taylor and son Brayden, whom he shares with his ex-wife. He experienced fatherhood once again in January 2023, when he and wife Heather Rae El Moussa welcomed a son, Tristan. "Becoming a father for the third time is just as exciting as it was the first time," he said in a statement to Us Weekly. "Our baby boy is doing amazing and Heather was a rockstar during labor. According to Tarek, his older children were likewise thrilled by the arrival of their new sibling. "I don't think I've ever seen Tay and Bray as happy as they were when they met their little brother," he added.

He elaborated on his happiness over the new arrival in an Instagram post that August, in which he and wife Heather were pictured posing with all three of his little ones. "The best job I've ever had? Raising my kids," he wrote in the caption.

While Tarek El Moussa found love again, Christina Haack hasn't been so lucky. First came her brief marriage to Ant Anstead, which ended in 2020. She then married Josh Hall in 2022, with that marriage ending in divorce in July 2024. While Haack and El Moussa certainly had some major drama over the years, they apparently put all of it behind them for a new HGTV show. A competition series, "The Flip Off" was initially to have pitted her and then-husband Josh Hall against Tarek and Heather Rae El Moussa in a house-flipping battle. However, footage taken during filming of the show, in which Hall brutally berated his future ex-wife, hinted at why the marriage didn't work out. "It was not fun, to be honest," she said in an interview with ET. "I did not enjoy filming with him, so having split up made this, to be honest, so much easier and so much better in every way."

When the dust settled (Haack and Hall split in July 2024), the show was reworked with Haack going solo to face off against the El Moussas; the hook would now be El Moussa competing against his ex-wife alongside his current wife. "That wasn't awkward at all," he wrote in the caption for a photo of all three of them he shared on Instagram, to promote the upcoming premiere of "The Flip Off." 

"Never say never," said Tarek while promoting the show on "New Day NW." "Never in my life would I ever imagine that the three of us would appear on camera together, yet here we are."