Christina Haack and Tarek El Moussa will face off again for Season 2 of The Flip Off, so get ready for more squabbling between the former spouses. But while the Flip or Flop alums always seem to be at each other’s throats on-screen, the pair are actually very close in real life, and Haack got candid about the huge way El Moussa was there for her during her breakup from Josh Hall — both in regards to The Flip Off and off-camera.
Fans of HGTV’s The Flip Off got a peek into the end of Christina Haack and Josh Hall’s marriage in the Season 1 premiere (available to stream with an HBO Max subscription), when Hall said his wife was “pissing [him] off” while filming. Later in the episode Haack mentions an argument they had off-camera that led to their split, and now she’s opening up about what went down and her ex-husband’s role in it all.
Christina Haack tells People that in July 2024, her children had apparently requested that Josh Hall not accompany them on a weekend trip to the beach, which “didn’t go down very well” with him. When they returned, the couple got into an argument, during which Haack said she called Tarek El Moussa. She recalls:
I called Tarek, and I said, ‘I’m worried right now. I feel uncomfortable.’ And he said, ‘Leave.’
Not only was The Flipping El Moussas star there for his ex-wife during that situation, but afterward, too, when it became clear that Josh Hall couldn’t continue being part of The Flip Off. Christina Haack said, per People, that her first husband stepped up and made some phone calls:
Tarek told our attorney and told the network for me that Josh would no longer be a part of the show. They said ‘No problem. That’s fine.’ They just said, ‘We need Christina to have a scene where she tells you, Tarek, that Josh is no longer going to be a part of the show.’
Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack played that scene as if she was telling him for the first time about the fight and that her marriage to Josh Hall was over, but of course, El Moussa and his wife already knew about the issues they’d been having. (In fact, he kind of predicted how it would go down.)
The Christina on the Coast star said producers didn’t coach her on what to say, just to tell Tarek that she and Josh had broken up, and it led to a raw and emotional conversation between the former spouses that fans really appreciated. Haack said:
I think that scene lasted probably an hour and a half in reality and everyone was crying: the camera operators, the production crew. It was emotional. Through the years we have obviously had talks, and we’ve apologized to each other, but not on camera and not like that. I don’t think he expected me to go there.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a little misty-eyed watching that scene myself! Christina Haack and Tarek El Moussa have seen some rough days, but it’s great to see that they’ve settled into a friendship as co-parents. It sounds like he was a really important support system for her in her divorce from her third husband.
Don’t expect to see much of that, though, when The Flip Off Season 2 premieres, as Heather Rae will inevitably be called on to mediate. New episodes aren’t likely to make it in time for the 2025 TV schedule, but keep an eye out for early next year.