In the season premiere of The Flip Off, Christina Haack, formerly known as Christina Hall, got candid about her past marriage to Tarek El Moussa.
“He didn’t always treat me right, and he’ll admit that,” Christina, 41, said in a confessional during the episode on Wednesday, January 29.
In his own confessional, Tarek, 43, opened up about health struggles that led him on a dark path during his marriage to Christina.
“I got diagnosed with cancer and I hurt my back and then I lost 60 pounds because I was taking so many opioids and Vicodin and pain killers and I lost my way, lost who I was,” the Flip or Flop alum confessed. “I just wasn’t the best husband. I wasn’t the best father. I own my s–t. It wasn’t me, but it was me.”
Tarek and Christina got married in 2009 after three years of dating. They welcomed daughter Taylor in 2010 and son Brayden in 2015.
In 2013, Tarek revealed his thyroid cancer diagnosis after a viewer pointed out a lump in his throat while watching his HGTV show.
“They said they would remove half of it and be done in an hour,” he told People. “But it ended up being four hours, it was cancer, and they ended up removing my entire thyroid. When I woke up, my wife was crying and the first thing I asked was, ‘It’s cancer, isn’t it?’ And she said, ‘Yeah.’”
Tarek was also diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent surgery. He admitted that afterward, he found himself dealing with new side effects.
“After having my testicle removed, I went to an anti-aging clinic and was prescribed testosterone to help with side effects from what they thought was low testosterone. It made all my issues worse, especially the anxiety and depression,” he told Patient Resource. “We determined my testosterone wasn’t low, and I was basically getting double what I needed. It created what they call “roid rage,” and I felt manic and angry. It turns out the hormone issues were related to the thyroid removal. Again, I was misdiagnosed, and my natural testosterone has never recovered but I manage it through medication.”
After his cancer battle, Tarek and Christina announced their split in 2016.
“Like many couples, we have had challenges in our marriage,” they said in a statement to People at the time. “We had an unfortunate misunderstanding about six months ago and the police were called to our house in an abundance of caution. There was no violence and no charges were filed.”
The divorce was finalized in 2018. Tarek married Heather Rae El Moussa in 2021. They welcomed son Tristan in 2023. Christina married Ant Anstead in 2018, and they welcomed son Hudson in 2019. The former couple announced their split in 2020 and were officially divorced in 2021.
Christina married her third husband, Josh Hall, in October 2021 and had a larger ceremony in 2022. They both filed for divorce in July 2024, citing “irreconcilable differences” for their split. Things have gotten quite messy since then, with Josh, 44, getting ousted from The Flip Off amid his divorce from Christina.
