If you’re a fan of the HGTV show Flip or Flop, then you’ve likely heard by now that hosts Tarek and Christina El Moussa are getting divorced.
The split made tabloid headlines, not only because the El Moussas appeared to have the perfect marriage, but also because of the ugly confrontation that led to their decision to part ways.
The incident reportedly involved Tarek threatening suicide and brandishing a gun.
The couple separated immediately thereafter, and thus far, it seems their divorce proceedings have been highly contentious.
Despite the apparent hostility, however, Tarek and Christina say that these days they’re doing their best to get along for the sake of their children – and their TV show.
Yes, the El Moussas both plan to continue filming the house-flipping series that made them famous.
Not the way that we expected this thing to play out, and clearly their relationship is more complicated than we realized.
Thankfully, the El Moussas have been surprisingly candid when discussing the split.
Already, Christina has opened up about the divorce in a series of revealing interviews.
Now, Tarek is following suit by sharing some heartbreaking revelations with People magazine:
“I feel like if we had better communication, we would have had a better relationship,” he says of his seven-year marriage.
He adds that the strains of parenthood, fame, and his own struggle with testicular and thyroid cancer made things particularly tough for the El Moussas:
“I think as time went on, as you get busier and busier. It was like overnight, businesses, TV, all these things happened overnight, then the cancer, then the cancer, and the back surgery,” Tarek says.
“It just kind of started pushing us apart from each other.”
Asked about how well he’s coping with the divorce, Tarek offered this frank response:
“I would be lying if I said it was easy. But like anything, there’s ups and downs and you have challenges, but at the end of the day, we’re just normal people.
“What’s most important is the family and the kids. It’s really important that we stay positive.”
Tarek adds that his cancer diagnosis brought challenges to the marriage that he never could have anticipated:
“It was an emotional rollercoaster, physical rollercoaster, I had 60-pound weight swings,” he says.
“For the first time in a long, long time I feel really good. It was a miserable three years.”
Asked if he regrets becoming a reality star knowing what a tremendous toll it’s taken on his marriage, Tarek gave this surprising response:
“Yes, I regret it, and no, I don’t regret it,” he explains.
“The reason I don’t regret it is because a nurse out of Texas was watching our show, she emailed me, said, ‘Go get your thyroid checked, you might have thyroid cancer.’
“So if it wasn’t for the TV and that nurse, I never would have found out.”
Tarek’s going through a dark time, to be sure, but it sounds as though he hasn’t lost his ability to locate the silver lining.
