Tarek El Moussa is taking responsibility for the role he played in his split from Christina Hall (née Haack).
El Moussa, 42, addressed the couple’s divorce during the Wednesday, April 3, episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show, admitting that he “wasn’t the best guy” to his ex-wife before their breakup. “When you’re going through multiple cancers back-to-back and your hormones are off and you’re in surgeries and you have no thyroid, you do things you normally wouldn’t do,” he explained, adding that he wasn’t making “an excuse” for his behavior.
In early 2013, El Moussa learned he had stage II thyroid cancer; shortly after, he also discovered he had testicular cancer. He eventually beat both forms of the illness, but his health scares caused turmoil in his personal life.
“What really broke me was my divorce. That was exponentially more difficult than every issue in my entire life put together,” he explained. “And somehow, I got through it.”
El Moussa and Hall, 40, announced their split in 2016 after seven years of marriage. The pair released a joint statement noting that there had been “challenges” in their relationship.
“Together, we have decided to separate while we reevaluate the future of our marriage,” the exes, who share daughter Taylor, 13, and son Brayden, 8, wrote. “During this process, we are committed to our kids and being the best parents we can be. We will continue to work through this process civilly and cooperatively, and plan to continue our professional life together.”
The duo’s divorce was finalized in 2018. El Moussa recently opened up about the incident that led to his separation from Hall in his new memoir, Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress — in Real Estate, Business and Life. Following an argument with his ex, El Moussa went for a walk and brought his gun with him due to mountain lions and bobcats being spotted in the area.
“A police officer leaning out of the helicopter pointed a rifle at me. Dust swirled around me from the spin of the blades, and a loudspeaker crackled, ‘Get your hands in the air!’” he wrote, per People. “I heard an officer shout, ‘Tarek?’ I screamed back, ‘Yes! I’m the guy from TV! What are you guys doing?’”
He continued: “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?’”
Both El Moussa and Hall have found their own happy endings following their turbulent split.
Tarek married Selling Sunset star Heather Rae El Moussa (née Young) in 2019, and the pair welcomed their son, Tristan Jay, in February 2023. “He thinks she has great, positive energy,” an insider told Us Weekly when the pair first started dating. “He loves the fact that she’s a realtor like him and that she’s a reality star because she understands his lifestyle.”
Christina, for her part, found love with realtor Joshua Hall, tying the knot in 2022. The HGTV star celebrated her husband’s birthday with a sweet Instagram post one year after walking down the aisle, calling him “gorgeous.”
“My ride or die, protector and the best step daddy,” she wrote. “I truly appreciate everything you do for me & the kids. Love our life baby, let’s live it like there’s no tomorrow.”
