Tarek El Moussa got real about how his divorce from Christina Hall turned his life upside down.
“When my ex left me, I went to some soul-searching places,” El Moussa, 42, revealed during the Monday, January 8, episode of the “Jeff Fenster Show” podcast. “I actually lived in a halfway house. This is my first time sharing that.”
The Flipping 101 host turned to the communal home because of his “turmoil” during that time. “I didn’t trust myself to be alone,” El Moussa confessed. “That’s how bad I was.”
He continued: “The reason I ended up there is because I didn’t know where to go and I needed 24-hour care. It was pretty bad because I had lost everything, it felt like, overnight. There were so many things going on.”
El Moussa noted, “It took me years to get over my divorce. I’m talking rock bottom. I did not want to be alive. It was that bad.” He explained that about 10 months after his split he realized that “life isn’t fair,” which he called a “defining moment.”
El Moussa and Hall, 40, called it quits in 2016 after seven years of marriage, finalizing their divorce in 2018. Their breakup came three years after El Moussa was diagnosed with two types of cancer, which he explained changed how he acted.
“Looking back, I wasn’t the best guy. I wasn’t the best husband. Definitely wasn’t the best father,” El Moussa, who shares daughter Taylor, 13, and son Brayden, 8, with Hall, admitted. “No excuses, I was going through a lot at the time, but my actions were not the best.”
The HGTV personality noted that his life “has been filled with so much pain,” which he’s used as “fuel” over the years. Now, he said he is “so grateful” for his life and “everything I have,” including his wife, Heather Rae El Moussa, and their son, Tristan, who was born in January 2023.
“Through all this hell and misery and turmoil and all this nonsense I’ve been through all these years, today I am happier than I’ve ever been,” Tarek said, adding that fans can learn more about his highs and lows in his upcoming memoir, Flip Your Life.
Hall has also moved on following her divorce from Tarek. She wed Ant Anstead in December 2018, and the pair welcomed their son, Hudson, in September 2019. Hall and Anstead, 44, divorced in 2020. Christina married Joshua Hall in 2022.
