The former 'Flip or Flop' star opens up to ET about his divorce, second marriage and upcoming book, 'Flip Your Life.'
As Tarek El Moussa prepares to let fans into his innermost thoughts with the release of his new book, Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress—in Real Estate, Business, and Life (out Feb. 6), the HGTV star reflects on his journey over the last few years with ET's Nischelle Turner.
From a very public divorce and harrowing health struggles to a new marriage and welcoming his third child, El Moussa, 42, has been through a rollercoaster of life events in less than a decade. It's these experiences that the reality star says make him the perfect author for a self-help book.
"I've needed a lot of self-help, you know? Throughout my life, there's been a lot of struggles. People don't know what I've been through, and that's why this book is important," he tells ET, running down the list of complications that cropped up in his life, including being diagnosed with ADHD, a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, anxiety issues, sleep issues, substance abuse, thyroid cancer and testicular cancer.
He continued, "I was hooked on opioids for a year because of a back surgery. So those are a lot of problems that I faced in my life, and you know, today, I'm thriving, right? I'm happier, I'm healthier, I'm doing better than I ever have, so I was able to get here by just putting in the work and just taking it one step at a time. And there are so many people out there in a tough spot, and they can get out of it. They just need hope, right? Hope is the keyword, so I really feel like Flip Your Life gives people hope to start building a better future."
El Moussa says that he wrote Flip Your Life to provide the book he needed when he was 20 years old. "When I was writing this book, I was thinking about 20-year-old Tarek like, what was the book I needed when I was at rock bottom? So I wrote the book that I would have needed."
Reflecting on that period of his life, El Moussa recalls how he was "just drowning all day, every day, with stress, anxiety, worry, [wondering] what [will] the future look like? What am I gonna do? Where am I gonna go? Why am I gaining so much weight? Why can't I stop drinking? Why can't I sleep? Just all these anxieties that threw my life completely out of control."
"The day I graduated high school, I was thriving. I was in great shape. I was an athlete, and less than a year later, I completely destroyed my life," he shares. "I gained 60 pounds, my clothing wouldn't fit [and] I became a depressed alcoholic. I stopped hanging out with my friends. And I was really lucky to get out of it."
As he looks back on his journey, El Moussa likens his work to overcome various obstacles to "a house" where "all things can be fixed."
A notable and well-publicized instance would be the end of his marriage to Christina Hall, whom he starred alongside on HGTV's Flip or Flop and with whom he shares 13-year-old daughter Taylor and 8-year-old son Brayden.
In an excerpt from his book that was released by People last month, the reality star recalls an incident that led in part to the end of his marriage, where he went out into Chino Hills State Park in California with a .38-caliber pistol, and police sent a helicopter out searching for him.
In December 2016, news broke that El Moussa and Hall had called it quits seven months prior after a heated argument led El Moussa to flee into a nature area with a gun. At the time, the two said in a joint statement, "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."
According to El Moussa, on the day that Hall called 911, he had merely wanted to get some fresh air and exercise after the two had a heated argument. He claims he "went out to our backyard in Yorba Linda and hopped over the fence." He writes in his book that he brought the gun -- which he says he had a California concealed-carry license for -- with him as an "insurance policy," as there are wild animals along the nature trails.
El Moussa then says he remembers seeing a helicopter overhead and wondering if there was a wildfire nearby. It never occurred to him that the authorities were out looking for him.
El Moussa says the officer in the helicopter recognized him. "I heard an officer shout, 'Tarek?' I screamed back, 'Yes! I'm the guy from TV! What are you guys doing?'"
Once weapons were put away and nerves were calm, El Moussa writes, "For the next several hours, I sat on a cooler on my driveway, handcuffed. 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?"
Looking back on the incident, El Moussa tells ET that he and Hall were going through "a rough time" after she decided to leave him.
"I was not doing well. My mental health was in the toilet," he candidly confesses. "I was on just so much testosterone 'cause I got some bad advice from a doctor. After my testicular and thyroid cancer, I wasn't feeling well so I was told I needed testosterone, and that was kind of the end of me, you know? The testosterone really threw every single anxiety or health issue I had into overdrive, and I just wasn't myself anymore."
Despite his inner turmoil, the father of three asserts that any insinuation that he intended to harm himself was false. "[The] bottom line is, I'm a father. Hurting myself and taking myself from my children is the last thing I would ever do under any circumstances," he proclaims. "Literally, there is nothing that can take me from my kids."
After residing in what El Moussa calls a "halfway house" for several months after his split from Hall, he says he had every intention of working on his marriage. But in 2017, Hall moved on with Ant Anstead, whom she was married to from 2018 to 2021 and shares 3-year-old son Hudson with.
"[In] 2017, I was on my own, I was going through a divorce, I didn't have my family with me and that was not the life I dreamed of," El Moussa tells ET. "That is not the life I wanted. So, by accepting the fact that I had that life and I was not happy with that life, it gave me the drive to start rebuilding my life. And today, I'm married to Heather. [I] love her so much, right? I have Tristan, he's turning one already, I can't believe it. Today, I'm living the life that I wanted years ago, right? It didn't just happen. It took work."
El Moussa remarried Heather Rae in October 2021, and the couple welcomed son Tristan Jay in January 2023.
When it comes to his relationship with his ex-wife, El Moussa says that he understands why Hall "did what she did," and has no intentions of keeping the truth of their tumultuous marriage from their children.
"What's important is telling my kids the truth... I want them to know the truth, and at the end of the day I'm going to tell them the truth and I'm going to share everything, the good the bad [and] the in-between," he vows, noting that he'll share these truths when the kids are old enough to understand. "They've asked me what happened with you and Mom, I tell the truth. I wasn't the best husband, you know, I was going through a lot. I wasn't the best friend, I wasn't the best son and I understand why she did what she did."
These days, El Moussa has come back out on the other side of things with a new appreciation for his life.
"I was never really there for [Taylor and Brayden] until Christina left me and then, in a sense, her leaving me was the best thing that’s ever happened to me because I rebuilt my life. I became the dad I always wanted to be," he admits. "I'm now the husband I always wanted to be, I'm the son I wanted to be, the friend I wanted to be, and that all came from her leaving me."
El Moussa confesses that Hall divorcing him made him "evaluate and self-check, 'Is this the person I want to be?'"
He's endeavored to be there for Tristan in a way he couldn't be for his older children, as well as working to repair his "broken" relationships with his elder son and daughter. "Today, me and my daughter are best friends. So how do you go from broken to that? Well, I learned it's [about] slowing down and just spending time together," he shares. "It's as simple as that. So if there's a dad out there, a mom out there having issues with their child, it's one-on-one time every day. It's amazing what time will do."
Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress -- in Real Estate, Business, and Life is now available wherever books are sold.
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