More than seven years later, Tarek El Moussa is setting the record straight on the infamous fight involving a gun that led to his divorce from Christina Hall.
The “Flipping 101” star reveals in his new book, “Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress ― in Real Estate, Business, and Life,” that the real reason he took a pistol with him after a “blowup” with his now-ex-wife was for protection.
El Moussa, 42, writes that, after the fight, he fled via the former couple’s backyard in Yorba Linda, Calif., and went to Chino Hills State Park because he was “craving exercise.”
According to People, he says the .38-caliber pistol he brought was an “insurance policy” since there were wildlife, including mountain lions and bobcats, in the natural habitat.
Hall, now 40, called 911, and when police arrived via a helicopter, one of the officers “pointed a rifle” at El Moussa, he claims.
“Dust swirled around me from the spin of the blades, and a loudspeaker crackled, ‘Get your hands in the air!’” he writes. “For the next several hours, I sat on a cooler on my driveway, handcuffed.”
El Moussa adds that the incident was the “very last time” that he and Hall were “together as a family.”
He also recalls in the book that his ex-wife was “crying” as she walked down the driveway and that he asked himself at the time, “‘What in the world is going on?’”
When the news of the altercation first broke in December 2016 — six months after it took place — it was reported at the time that police had received a call “of a possibly suicidal male with a gun.”
However, El Moussa reportedly told officers even then that he had no intention of hurting himself and just wanted to “blow off some steam.” Cops still seized five guns from his home out of precaution.
The HGTV personality spoke out about what occurred in an interview on “Dr. Oz” in April 2018, recounting a story similar to the one in his new memoir.
“I have a CCW, California Concealed [Weapons license], which means I can legally carry a firearm,” he explained on the talk show at the time.
“I live in the canyons where there’s wildlife and bobcats and mountain lions, and I literally went on a hike. … I literally I have the text to prove [I was just going hiking]. I showed the police. They’re, like, ‘I’m sorry, man.’”
El Moussa now remembers the “physical and emotional hell” that the experience caused him, telling People that he hid out on his boat and often drank himself unconscious as he also dealt with withdrawals from testosterone he had been taking.
“Everybody gave up on me: the magazines, the outlets, the network, nobody believed in me,” he said.
El Moussa — who shares two kids, daughter Taylor, 13, and son Brayden, 8, with Hall — said he went to a halfway house in an effort to try and rekindle his relationship with his ex and get his family back together.
However, Hall moved on with her second husband, Ant Anstead, from whom she has since split, in 2017.
“I would say devastating would be an understatement,” El Moussa said of his ex’s new romance.
“I hold nothing against Christina. I understand why she did what she did. We had a lot of hard years through my sicknesses and my mental health struggles from the testosterone.”
The former “Flip or Flop” co-stars’ divorce was finalized in 2018, and he married “Selling Sunset” alum Heather Rae Young three years later. The pair welcomed a son, Tristan, in January 2023.
Hall, for her part, secretly married her third husband, Josh Hall, in a courthouse wedding in 2022. They do not share any kids together.
El Moussa reflected to People ahead of the release of his book on Feb. 6, “Ever since that day [of the big fight], I just haven’t looked back, and I’m just so happy and excited about the family I have today.”