No quantity of spackle can cowl up the controversies which have plagued HGTV over time. The cable channel, which is dedicated to actual property and renovations, has gotten destructive publicity over time, normally due to an HGTV star going through allegations of unhealthy habits or unhealthy workmanship. However within the first controversy within the timeline beneath, followers realized simply how unreal one of the crucial in style HGTV actuality exhibits actually is…
2012: Home Hunters’ manufacturing secrets and techniques are revealed
Home Hunters followers found the disappointing actuality behind the HGTV present after former participant Bobi Jensen informed Hooked on Homes that she and her husband had already bought their house by the point they filmed the present. Jensen additionally mentioned Home Hunters producers didn’t even settle for them as topics till that they had closed on the acquisition. The couple then needed to fake to be contemplating different homes, which really belonged to household associates.
A publicist for the present responded to the claims by admitting some manufacturing shortcuts, telling Leisure Weekly, “We’re making a tv present, so we handle sure manufacturing and time constraints, whereas honoring the house shopping for course of. To maximise manufacturing time, we search out households who’re fairly far alongside within the course of. Typically, all the pieces strikes way more rapidly than we are able to anticipate, so we return and revisit a number of the properties that the household has already seen, and we seize their genuine reactions.”
2014: David and Jason Benham lose HGTV present following homophobic remarks
In 2014, HGTV bailed on its present Flip It Ahead with twin brothers and actual property entrepreneurs David and Jason Benham after the web site Proper Wing Watch revealed anti-gay feedback that David had made to a conservative radio host in 2012.
“We don’t notice that, okay, if 87% of People are Christians, and but we now have abortion on demand; we now have no-fault divorce; we now have pornography and perversion; we now have a homosexuality and its agenda that’s attacking the nation; we now have adultery; we now have the entire issues; we even have allowed demonic ideologies to take our universities and our public college techniques whereas the church sits silent and simply builds large church buildings,” David informed the radio host, per the web site.
A day after that report, HGTV tweeted that it had “determined to not transfer ahead with the Benham Brothers’ sequence.”
David tried to elucidate his feedback on CNN on the time, saying, “We love all individuals. I like homosexuals. I like Islam, Muslims, and my brother and I might by no means discriminate. By no means have we — by no means would we. By no means have I ever spoken towards homosexuals, as people, and gone towards them. I talk about an agenda. And that’s actually what the purpose of that is, is that there’s an agenda that’s in search of to silence the voices of women and men of religion.”
2015: Ellen’s Design Problem Season 1 ends in disqualification
In 2015, furnishings designer Tim McClellan gained after which misplaced Ellen’s Design Problem Season 1’s $100,000 grand prize when producers disqualified him for allegedly copying one other particular person’s desk design. Producers then awarded the victory and prize cash to runner-up Katie Stout.
Followers criticized HGTV for its dealing with of the plagiarism allegation and for not letting McClellan defend himself on air, in accordance with The Washington Publish. Creator and government producer Ellen DeGeneres then invited McClellan onto her discuss present, the place he mentioned he accepted the choice however couldn’t recall ever seeing the opposite designer’s work.
“Getting ready for this competitors and during the last 20 years, I’ve checked out thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of items of furnishings,” McClellan added. “And it’s fairly potential and appears as if that piece one way or the other acquired lodged in my reminiscence.”
2016: Love It or Record It householders say the present “irreparably broken” their house
Householders featured on HGTV’s Love It or Record It sued the present’s producers in 2016, alleging that the renovations “irreparably broken” their North Carolina home after they invested $140,000 with manufacturing firm Large Coat TV to make over the property, in accordance with ABC Information. Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan additionally claimed the manufacturing firm misused greater than $65,000 of that cash.
A yr later — and after Large Coat filed defamation claims that had been dismissed by a decide — the case settled underneath undisclosed phrases, per The Information & Observer.
2016: Chip and Joanna Gaines’ pastor’s anti-gay views make headlines
A 2016 BuzzFeed Information report uncovered the anti-gay attitudes of Jimmy Seibert, the pastor of Antioch Neighborhood Church, an evangelical megachurch Fixer Higher stars Chip and Joanna Gaines had been attending. In a sermon the earlier yr — following the Supreme Courtroom choice legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states — Seibert had preached that homosexuality was a sin and may very well be transformed to heterosexuality. Although it wasn’t recognized if the Gaineses shared their pastor’s beliefs, the BuzzFeed Information report did notice that the then-HGTV stars had by no means labored with a same-sex couple on Fixer Higher.
The couple additionally drew controversy in 2021 for donating $1,000 to Shannon Braun, Chip’s sister, in her marketing campaign for a Texas college board seat on a platform that included opposition to essential race concept, per The Dallas Morning Information.
The Gaineses addressed the backlash in a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “The accusations that get thrown at you, such as you’re a racist otherwise you don’t like individuals within the LGBTQ group, that’s the stuff that actually eats my lunch — as a result of it’s so removed from who we actually are,” Joanna informed the publication. “That’s the stuff that retains me up.”
2016: Tarek El Moussa’s gun incident involves gentle
In 2016, TMZ reported that then-married Flip or Flop costars Christina and Tarek El Moussa had break up following an incident six months prior by which Tarek left their Orange County house with a gun and proceeded down a mountaineering path earlier than being confronted by 11 deputies and a helicopter. Tarek informed the deputies he was solely “blow[ing] off steam” and took the gun for defense from mountain lions and rattlesnakes, the location added.
“Like many {couples}, we now have had challenges in our marriage,” Christina and Tarek informed Individuals. “We had an unlucky misunderstanding about six months in the past, and the police had been referred to as to our home in an abundance of warning. There was no violence, and no fees had been filed.”
Tarek mirrored on the incident in a 2024 interview with E! Information. “I wasn’t doing good. I actually wasn’t doing good … hated my life, hated myself. I simply hated being alive. So I made a decision to go blow off steam, hike some trails. And subsequent factor I do know, there’s a rifle pointed at me. I’m like, ‘Oh, one thing’s actually happening.’ I swear all the pieces slowed down. It was like a film, and there’s these mud clouds in all places, 11 sheriffs come up, they pull out their weapons, they’ve me at gunpoint, they’re screaming at me. And I’m pondering, ‘What on the planet is happening?’”
2017: Carter Oosterhouse accused of coerced intercourse
A make-up artist who labored on Carter Oosterhouse’s HGTV present Carter Can alleged in 2017 that he coerced her into performing oral intercourse on her throughout manufacturing. Kailey Kaminsky informed The Hollywood Reporter that she gave in to Oosterhouse’s calls for after months of stress from the TV host. “Then thereafter it was most each time we might shoot — 10 to fifteen instances he put me on this place,” she mentioned.
Oosterhouse mentioned in a press release to THR that he did have an “intimate relationship” with Kaminsky however mentioned that it was “100% mutual” and that he “by no means would have achieved something” that wasn’t “mutually agreeable.”
2019: Windy Metropolis Rehab’s authorized saga begins
HGTV’s Windy Metropolis Rehab endured a lot authorized drama that the Chicago Solar-Occasions has a timeline of lawsuits, allow violations, and stop-work orders that impacted the present and its hosts. In 2019, for instance, the present was hit with a stop-work order for doing building with out a allow, and then-cohost Donovan Eckhardt had his license suspended.
In 2020, Eckhardt and cohost Alison Victoria had been sued for fraud by householders alleging shoddy building on their $1.36 million house (in a swimsuit that was later settled), Eckhardt was sued by a subcontractor alleging Eckhardt hadn’t paid him $108,500, one other pair of house owners sued the cohosts for alleged fraud and shoddy work (in a case that was later resolved), and buyers sued them for allegedly working “a deliberate and fraudulent scheme to misappropriate funds.”
And in 2021, Eckhardt sued Discovery Inc. and manufacturing firm Large Desk Media, claiming he’d been falsely portrayed because the villain on the present, in a case that was later dismissed.
