NEED TO KNOW
- Christina Haack recalled a joke her first husband Tarek El Moussa made to her regarding her marriage to third husband Josh Hall, before he knew their relationship was on the rocks
- Haack and El Moussa were co-starring on The Flip Off at the time, which was also supposed to star Hall as his then-wife’s teammate
- The designer officially split with Hall in July 2024 after nearly three years of marriage
Tarek El Moussa loves to bust his ex-wife Christina Haack’s chops — especially when it comes to her former marriages.
During an exclusive interview for PEOPLE’s cover story earlier this month, Haack, 42, recalled a joke El Moussa, 44, made about her marriage to third husband Josh Hall ahead of filming for their HGTV show The Flip Off.
The house flipping competition series was originally supposed to pit Haack and her then-husband Hall against Tarek and his wife Heather Rae El Moussa, however things took an unexpected turn when Haack and Hall’s marriage ended weeks into production in July 2024.
This was around the same time Tarek — to whom Haack was married from 2009 to 2016 — cracked a joke about her marriage to Hall being doomed, not knowing things really were about to implode.
“In all honesty, I didn’t want to film the show with Josh,” Haack told PEOPLE. “The network knew I didn’t want to and I had even told Tarek I didn’t want to, and he had joked and said — well, I don’t know if he was joking — but he said, ‘Whatever. You guys are just going to split up in episode two and then the show will go on and everything will be fine.’”
Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack on ‘The Flip Off’.
HGTV
As it turned out, he was only off by an episode.
The series premiere of The Flip Off, which aired in January 2025, featured a fight between Haack and Hall, and then Haack breaking the news to Tarek that her marriage was officially over.
The episode included a tense car ride filmed before they ended their marriage showing a mostly one-sided conversation between the pair, during which Hall can be seen criticizing Haack and questioning her loyalty to him in the competition.
As the argument escalates, he eventually tells her that she’s “pissing me off” and to “shut up.”
Christina Haack and ex Josh Hall’s tense car ride during the season premiere of ‘The Flip Off’.
HGTV/Youtube
During her interview with PEOPLE, Haack explained that their final blow-up was not caught on camera – and Tarek even had a hand in helping her though it.
It was the Fourth of July 2024, and Haack remembers how her kids asked if Hall could stay home while they visited a friend’s house at the beach. The designer shares Taylor, 15, and Brayden, 10, with Tarek, and Hudson, 6, with her second husband Ant Anstead.
She said the request “didn’t go down very well [with Josh] as you can imagine,” and he “wasn’t too happy” when she and her kids returned to their Newport Beach, Calif. home. This prompted her and Hall to get into what would be their last argument.
In the moments after the fight, she says, “I called Tarek, and I said, ‘I’m worried right now. I feel uncomfortable.’ And he said, ‘Leave.’”
Christina Haack and ex Tarek El Moussa’s emotional conversation on ‘The Flip Off’.
Courtesy HGTV
It was also Tarek who made the call to HGTV to get Hall off The Flip Off the day after the blow-up.
“Tarek told our attorney and told the network for me that Josh would no longer be a part of the show,” she reveals. “They said ‘No problem. That’s fine.’ They just said, ‘We need Christina to have a scene where she tells you, Tarek, that Josh is no longer going to be a part of the show.’”
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That scene was filmed about a week later, she says, and included an emotional conversation between her and Tarek. The exes made a number of tearful confessions regarding their treatment towards each other during their marriage, which ultimately resulted in the pair forgiving one another and officially putting the past behind them.
