Christina Hall And Tarek El Moussa's 911 Incident Was Messier Than We Thought
The following article references suicide
Christina Hall and Tarek El Moussa's relationship came to an end in the spring of 2016, several months before they announced it to the public. While many celebrities choose to keep their separation statements vague, Hall and El Moussa were honest about what caused the demise of their seven-year marriage. "We had an unfortunate misunderstanding about six months ago and the police were called to our house in an abundance of caution. There was no violence and no charges were filed," they shared in a December 2016 statement, via People.
On May 23, 2016, police were called to the home of the former "Flip or Flop" co-hosts when El Moussa went out to the Chino Hills State Park Main Ridge Trail near the property carrying a firearm following an altercation with Hall. Hall called authorities out of fear that El Moussa might be having suicidal thoughts. When the deputies learned that El Moussa was armed, they called in a helicopter to help locate him faster. El Moussa temporarily surrendered all of the weapons he owned after being brought back home.
El Moussa denied he had any intentions to hurt himself, and Hall similarly confirmed to authorities he had never displayed any suicidal tendencies. El Moussa and Hall, whose daughter Taylor was 5 and son Brayden just 9 months old at the time, tried to put it all behind them and work on their marriage through counseling, according to People. Unfortunately, the incident was too messy and exposed a lot of dirt.
Tarek El Moussa spent hours handcuffed
When Tarek El Moussa jumped over the fence and into the woods on the night of his argument with Christina Hall, he was in search of a physical outlet for his emotions. "I craved some exercise," he wrote in his 2024 book, "Flip Your Life," in which he offered details of the incident. He had recently purchased mountain bikes online and had been wanting to check out the trails before they arrived. After the fight with Hall, he thought he could use that as an opportunity for them both to have space to cool off.
He grabbed a pistol for protection against wildlife. When he saw the helicopter, he never imagined it was for him — he thought there might have been a wildfire or another emergency nearby. What happened next turned his life upside-down. "A police officer leaning out of the helicopter pointed a rifle at me," he detailed. He was soon surrounded by many others. "Suddenly, off-road police vehicles roared up, and dozens of officers leaped out with their guns drawn."
El Moussa spent the next several hours in handcuffs. "That was the very last time we were together as a family: with Christina walking down the driveway, crying, and me sitting there in handcuffs," he detailed. El Moussa was in disbelief. "It got really blown out of proportion," he said on "Today" in 2017 (via People). But even if he thinks the episode in itself was unnecessary, he knows Hall had good reasons for the split.
Tarek El Moussa has no ill feelings toward Christina Hall
Tarek El Moussa knows his marriage to Christina Hall was marked by the ups and downs of his personal life. In 2013, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and subsequently discovered testicular cancer. Faced with the physical and mental toll of the treatments, El Moussa sought help for his hormones. "Next thing I know I'm shoving a needle on my ass and taking steroids, it was testosterone," he said on the Dr. Drew podcast in 2018 (via People).
Hall was by his side through it all, but it became too much. "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," he told People in February. Following their divorce, El Moussa and Hall maintained their professional relationship, keeping "Flip or Flop" going until 2022. Unsurprisingly, though, their personal relationship has remained complicated.
In July 2021, El Moussa lashed out against Hall on set, calling her a failure and comparing her looks to his now-wife Heather Rae El Moussa, TMZ reported. The following year, Tarek and Heather and Christina, joined by her new husband, Joshua Hall, brawled at Brayden's soccer game, The Daily Mail reported. Hall admitted co-parenting with El Moussa can be complicated, but they make it work. "As long as the kids come first — and they do for all of us — that's all that matters," she told Us Weekly in 2023.