Tarek El Moussa Said ‘Heartbreak’ From Christina Hall Divorce Was ‘Worse Than 2 Cancers and a Back Surgery Combined’
HGTV stars Tarek El Moussa and Christina Hall were married for nearly a decade before their very public divorce. Here’s what El Moussa recently shared about heartbreak, the divorce, and his experiences with cancer.
Tarek El Moussa and Christina Hall were married for 9 years before their divorce
Christina Hall and Tarek El Moussa met while working together in real estate, and they married in 2009. They share two children, a 12-year-old daughter named Taylor and a 7-year-old son named Brayden.
In 2008, the economic crisis forced the couple to move from a $6,000/month home into a $700/month apartment (per redbook). They decided to venture into house-flipping. Hoping to generate more business by being on television, El Moussa sent a video of their first flip to HGTV. Thanks to that audition tape, HGTV launched Flip or Flop, which debuted in 2013 and had a successful 10-season run.
The show changed the family’s lives in many ways, including helping El Moussa discover that he had cancer. A viewer noticed a lump on El Moussa’s throat and contacted the Flip or Flop producers. The real estate mogul was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, two months later, testicular cancer.
El Moussa has been in remission since 2014, but he later revealed that stress from treatment and the TV show damaged his marriage. He and Hall divorced in 2018. They continued filming Flip or Flop together after their divorce, but the show finally ended in March 2022, with a special “Final Flip” episode airing in December of the same year.
Tarek El Moussa said ‘heartbreak’ from his divorce from Christina Hall was ‘worse than 2 cancers’
In a recent interview, Tarek El Moussa opened up about the lowest point in his life. Instead of his two cancer diagnoses, El Moussa said heartbreak was the biggest challenge he ever had to overcome.
“For me, the most difficult thing I’ve ever faced was heartbreak,” he told Pallazzo Magazine in December. “For me, it was exponentially worse than two cancers and a back surgery combined.”
Besides two different cancers, El Moussa also overcame two serious back injuries. The first took him a year and a half to recover from. The second was in 2018, the same year his divorce from Hall was finalized.
The ‘Flip or Flop’ star shared how he got through his heartbreak
Tarek El Moussa revealed how he overcame heartbreak after his divorce from Christina Hall. “It didn’t take me a week, a month or even a year to recover – it took time,” the Flip or Flop star said. “Through many years of healing, the one thing I told myself was to stay positive, keep moving forward and keep chasing my goals and I knew one day the storm would pass, and it did. I overcame that period, found myself in a better place and I eventually met my current wife, Heather and that was the game changer.”
El Moussa has also said that his children motivated him to get through tough times. On Sept. 22, he shared an Instagram post dedicated to his daughter on her birthday.
“12 years ago today Taylor came into my life and it’s never been the same. I swear…I’m tearing up writing this,” El Moussa wrote. “I’ve been through so much struggle in my life and the one thing that has always kept me going is my little girl.”
The HGTV star continued, “She’s the most loyal, loving, caring little girl I could have asked for. It’s so scary to think how fast time is going and to think I only have 6 more years with her until college. There is no way I could have survived those rough years without her so for that I thank her. I thank her for inspiring me, motivating me and making me want to be better.”
