Halfway houses, debilitating injuries, and a scary episode involving the police. As the co-host of "Flip or Flop," Tarek El Moussa made a successful career out of flipping homes — but there was a dark side to all that fame and fortune.
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00:00Halfway houses, debilitating injuries, and a scary episode involving the police.
00:05As the co-host of Flip or Flop, Tarek El Moussa made a successful career out of flipping homes.
00:11But there was a dark side to all that fame and fortune.
00:15It is hard to picture Tarek El Moussa doing anything aside from selling real estate
00:19or flipping houses. But that wasn't his original plan. Before injuring his shoulder in his freshman
00:24year of high school, the future reality star dreamed of becoming a professional baseball
00:29player. He wrote in his book Flip Your Life How to Find Opportunity in Distress,
00:34In Real Estate, Business, and Life,
00:36"...I stayed on the team over the next three years, suiting up, shagging balls,
00:40and hoping things would get better. But by senior year, I knew my dream had come to an end."
00:45The heartbreak of his unfulfilled dream led El Moussa into a depression and ultimately
00:50down a destructive path. He wrote,
00:53"...I felt outrageously cheated out of the activity I loved most,
00:56and out of the future I'd planned for myself."
00:59"...I always believed baseball was my thing."
01:02After he finally accepted that he wouldn't play baseball in the pros,
01:05El Moussa began drinking alcohol excessively. He lived in his mom's garage, where he would
01:10regularly sleep half the day away. El Moussa explained on Instagram in December 2023,
01:16"...I slept so much not only because I was drunk, but because I hated being awake.
01:21I hated having to deal with the inner voice in my head haunting me, telling me what a loser I was.
01:26I hated myself and I hated my life. Every day I wallowed away in self-pity and misery."
01:31In a separate Instagram post, El Moussa detailed how he once did 30 shots of vodka
01:36in a single day when he was 20. Not long after, he decided to spend 90 days taking real estate
01:42seriously. He made $130,000 in commission, and that was the start of his big turnaround.
01:48El Moussa had a string of bad years in the 2010s, and it all started in 2013,
01:53the same year that Flip or Flop hit the air. A nursing fan of the show named Ryan Reed wrote
01:58to producers after she noticed a nodule on El Moussa's neck. He told People magazine,
02:04"...I actually went to the doctor twice for it, and they said it's nothing.
02:07So once I saw the note from Reed, I was like, you know what, I need to get a second opinion."
02:12"...and then it hit me, something's wrong."
02:15Since El Moussa's ultrasound results were inconclusive, he opted to remove a small
02:19portion of the lobe around the lump for a biopsy. When he awoke from surgery,
02:24he was told he had cancer. El Moussa told Patient Resource,
02:27"...my doctor ended up removing the entire thyroid and some lymph nodes. I learned that
02:32the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, and I would need radioactive iodine therapy to kill
02:37the remaining cancer cells. It was a challenging period in the reality star's life, but fortunately,
02:42they were able to treat the cancer before it continued to spread."
02:46After El Moussa learned his original thyroid cancer was misdiagnosed,
02:50he began looking into other health matters. That's when an old testicular exam caught
02:55his attention. Before long, El Moussa learned that he also had testicular cancer.
03:00"...I think I was 31, fighting two cancers at the same time. In my mind, I'm dead."
03:06El Moussa subsequently had his testicle removed. However, he still needed to undergo radiation.
03:11As a result, he and then-wife Christina Hawk were told they would have to put having a second
03:16child on hold, so they decided to use sperm banking and IVF instead. But the process proved
03:22challenging, with multiple failed attempts and a miscarriage. The couple eventually
03:26welcomed a son, Brayden, in 2015. To treat his cancers, El Moussa had
03:32back-to-back surgeries. He even returned to work a week later, despite feeling terrible.
03:37He shared in a Future for Patient resource,
03:39"...my hormones were way out of whack, and it really affected my mental state.
03:43Trying to figure out the medications to replace my thyroid hormone was awful. I dealt with fatigue,
03:49brain fog, depression, mood swings, anxiety, and a rapid heart rate every day."
03:54At some point, El Moussa developed the idea that removing his testicle had lowered his
03:59testosterone levels, thus leaving him feeling fatigued all the time. He went to an anti-aging
04:04clinic to seek help, which only ended up making matters worse. El Moussa was already taking human
04:10chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, injections every day because he was told that would help.
04:16The clinic also prescribed him testosterone, which exacerbated his problems,
04:21especially his anxiety and depression. In his Patient resource feature, El Moussa wrote,
04:26"...we determined my testosterone wasn't low, and I was basically getting double what I needed.
04:31It created what they call roid rage, and I felt manic and angry."
04:35It turns out the hormone issues were related to the thyroid removal.
04:39"...it took me to the highest highs I've ever been to in my life,
04:42the lowest lows I ever went to in my life. I was impatient, short-tempered. It ruined me."
04:48It wasn't until after El Moussa and Haack split up in 2016 following a violent incident
04:53that the star overcame his steroid addiction.
04:56Four months after getting through his second cancer, El Moussa suffered a horrific back injury,
05:01which led to a dependency on prescription drugs. It happened when he was playing golf
05:06and slipped several discs in his lower back, which were pinching his sciatic nerve.
05:10El Moussa shared on a 2018 episode of The Dr. Drew Podcast,
05:14"...I lost 60 pounds. I was on Vicodin every day. My hormones are off,
05:19I'm on pain meds and narcotics, and I'm filming and working. It's wild. It was a horrifying
05:24experience."
05:25By the time he decided to undergo surgery, El Moussa could barely walk or even do things like
05:31put on his socks. He relied on eight to ten painkillers to make it through each day.
05:35El Moussa's back surgery was ultimately successful, but it led to a complication
05:40in his urethra that required another week-long hospital stay to deal with the blockage.
05:44In May 2018, El Moussa re-entered his back and feared having to deal with the same level of
05:50struggle. He wrote on Instagram,
05:52"...last time I hurt my back it took me a year and a half to recover.
05:55As of today I can barely walk. I honestly can't even believe this is happening."
06:00In 2016, El Moussa was involved in a domestic altercation with his then-wife, Christina Hawk.
06:06The actual incident occurred in May, but it was not widely reported until El Moussa and
06:11Hawk publicly announced their split in December. According to TMZ, Hawk was visibly upset when
06:17police showed up following a report of a possibly suicidal male with a gun.
06:21El Moussa had taken a gun out of a safe and fled the home after a big fight with Hawk.
06:26Police tracked him down by helicopter on a hiking trail near their home. El Moussa wrote in his book,
06:31"...a police officer leaning out of the helicopter pointed a rifle at me.
06:35Dust swirled around me from the spin of the blades and a loudspeaker crackled,
06:39get your hands in the air."
06:41El Moussa has maintained he was just trying to exercise and that the gun was for protection from
06:46local wildlife. When news of the altercation broke, the couple released a statement to People that
06:51"...we had an unfortunate misunderstanding about six months ago, and the police were
06:55called to our house in an abundance of caution. There was no violence and no charges were filed."
07:01Although El Moussa and Hawk initially tried couples counseling,
07:04they ultimately concluded that there was no way to repair their marriage.
07:08"...in 2016, my life imploded. Christina left me, and it was heartbreaking."
07:15El Moussa officially filed divorce papers in January 2017,
07:19and the divorce was finalized a year later. Even though their marriage had ended, however,
07:23El Moussa and Hawk continued working together on their hit series Flip or Flop.
07:28After his split from Hawk, El Moussa fell into a dark place.
07:31He spoke about his post-divorce mental state on The Dr. Drew Podcast, telling the host,
07:36"...the second I separated from my wife, I said,
07:39OK, it's time to do some soul-searching, figure out what's wrong with me. I was so
07:44broken as a person after going through all the trauma and the divorce and all these different
07:48things."
07:49Because he was in such a poor mental state, El Moussa didn't think he was capable of living
07:54on his own. In a January 2024 episode of The Jeff Finster Show Podcast,
07:59the star revealed that he moved into a halfway house after Hawk left him.
08:03"...the reason I ended up there is because I didn't know where to go,
08:05and I needed 24-hour care. It was pretty bad."
08:09Though he was able to get off steroids and painkillers,
08:12El Moussa was still feeling blue before meeting his current wife, Heather Rae El Moussa.
08:17Tarek has credited Heather with totally changing his outlook on life after a handful of supremely
08:22difficult years. He wrote on Instagram in October 2023,
08:26"...before Heather, I really lived a different life, and I know a lot of you can relate.
08:31I was honestly just sad and lonely without her. It was her who brought me back to life.
08:35It was her who taught me to love myself and others again. It was her who gave me hope."
08:40It is clear that meeting Heather allowed Tarek to see the world through a new, brighter lens.
08:46But prior to meeting her, he was not sure he could ever have another true partnership.
08:50He told People magazine in 2019,
08:52"...I just never really thought I would open up to someone again. I never thought I would
08:56be vulnerable again. I saw Heather one day, and right when she smiled, I just lit up inside.
09:02I had this feeling that I hadn't felt in like 20 years."
09:05After slightly more than two years of dating, Tarek and Heather married in October 2021.
09:11El Moussa and Haack have had some challenges since their divorce. In summer 2021,
09:16there were reports of an on-set fight between the pair in which El Moussa called Haack a, quote,
09:21"...washed-up loser." Then there was an incident in May of 2022, when El Moussa got into a verbal
09:27altercation with Haack's then-husband, Joshua Hall, during a kids' soccer game. However,
09:32the family was brought back together after their son Brayden had to undergo an emergency
09:36appendectomy. Since then, El Moussa and Haack have been able to build a friendship.
09:40Heather and Haack have even filmed a few funny TikToks together, poking fun at their similarities.
09:46If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues,
09:49help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or
09:54contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP, 4357.
10:02For more stories, visit nyseagrant.org.