Flip or Flop star Tarek El Moussa dated the couple’s former nanny four months after he and wife Christina quietly separated, according to a new report.
TMZ reports that Tarek, 35, had feelings for the former couple’s former nanny, 23-year-old Alyssa Logan, but was advised by friends not to pursue a relationship while she was employed by the family. A source tells a site that she was subsequently fired, and in September, four months after he and Christina, 33, decided to live separately, they briefly dated.
A rep for the couple did not respond to Us Weekly‘s request for comment.
The relationship was short-lived, however. Tarek and Logan allegedly broke up later that same month.
As previously reported, Christina has reportedly been dating the family contractor, Gary Anderson, since the couple’s separation. Anderson was on-hand to witness Tarek’s scary gun incident in May, according to TMZ, which possibly brought him and Christina closer together.
Though Christina and Tarek parted ways in May, the beloved HGTV couple went public with their separation news just this past Monday, December 12. “Like many couples, we have had challenges in our marriage,” they told Us in a 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. We chose to get counseling to sort out our relationship. Together, we have decided to separate while we reevaluate the future of our marriage.”
The “misunderstanding” in question appears to be an incident in May wherein the Orange County Sheriff’s Department dispatched 11 deputies to the couple’s home after being told there was a “possibly suicidal male with a gun.” An eyewitness told police that he saw Tarek “run out of his back door, jump over his back fence and walk northbound into the hiking trails of the Chino Hills State Park.”
A friend of Christina’s later told police that Tarek had grabbed a handgun from his safe before storming into the woods. (He later clarified that he had only taken the firearm with him “for safety because of mountain lions and rattlesnakes in the area.”)
The pair share two children — daughter Taylor, 6, and son Brayden, 15 months — and told People magazine that at present, they have no plans to officially file for divorce, and will continue to work together professionally. “The most difficult part of the decision to separate was the kids,” they said. “We want the best for them, and we’re doing everything we can to ensure that.”
