Chip Gaines Thought He Was Going to be Arrested Just Before Launching Magnolia Network: ‘It Was Serious’
Chip and Joanna Gaines rose to fame on the popular HGTV show Fixer Upper, which ran for five seasons from 2013 to 2018. During their time on the show, the couple helped clients see a vision for their dream homes, and Chip and Joanna brought that home to life. The two raised four kids on the show as well and welcomed their fifth child, son Crew, shortly after the show ended.
After leaving HGTV in 2018, Chip and Joanna went on to launch their own TV network, Magnolia Network. However, Chip recalled in a 2023 conversation with Jimmy Fallon that he accidentally announced the network too soon — and thought he might get taken away in “handcuffs” afterward.
Chip and Joanna Gaines launched Magnolia Network in early 2022
The couple stepped back from HGTV in 2018, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still hard at work. Aside from television, the two had a massive interior design market they were running in their home town of Waco, Texas, known as Magnolia Market. The market also housed a restaurant and bakery, and the couple recently remodeled a hundred-year-old castle in Waco as well. Plus, Joanna has a quarterly magazine, Magnolia Journal, and has released two Magnolia Table cookbooks, with a third on the way.
In 2022, the couple’s official television network launched, full of shows that starred Chip and Joanna but also highlighted plenty of other designers around the country. Chip and Joanna returned with a new variation of Fixer Upper, and Joanna also starred in a show adaptation of her cookbooks, Magnolia Table. Since then, the network has continued to welcome different faces and shows.
Chip Gaines was worried he would get arrested after announcing Magnolia Network early
Chip’s excitement about the new network once turned into worry after he thought he might land himself in trouble for announcing the network too early. In an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon back in February 2023, Chip and Joanna recalled being on Fallon’s show several years ago — before Magnolia Network had been announced. Chip reminisced on mentioning the launch of the couple’s network to Fallon on live television, and he even recalled being worried about getting in “serious” trouble for his over-eager announcement.
“You were here, and you were talking to me, and you were like, ‘We’re not sure if we’re legally allowed to say,’” Fallon recalled of a conversation with Chip and Joanna on his show several years back.
“I said it,” Chip said, to the tune of laughter from the audience. Joanna jumped in and said, “Of course, right before we came out, they said, ‘Don’t mention it, Chip.’” She added that “it was serious.”
“We were nervous that we were gonna go off stage to handcuffs,” Chip said, remembering at the time that “we don’t even know if [Magolia Network] is a real thing.” Of course, now he knows that the network launch panned out, and it turned out to be a big hit. At the time, though, things were still up in the air.
Now, Chip and Joanna can look back at Chip’s slip-up (intentional or not) and laugh because of the success they have built through the network. The two are still working hard on all of their other Magnolia projects, and the couple posted a heartfelt video to Instagram in January 2023 to mark 20 years of their Magnolia brand.
