The Shady Side Of HGTV's Chip Gaines Everyone Ignores

In Chip Gaines, HGTV found an entertaining goofball who grew into one half of a home reno power couple — one whose influence became so great that they turned two old cottonseed silos into a popular tourist trap. However, some HGTV viewers aren't quite as enamored with Chip anymore, and their negative feelings about the "Fixer Upper" star may not only be aroused by how obnoxious he can sometimes be on his show but also by his shady behavior.

In Chip's defense, there probably would be no "Fixer Upper" without his shenanigans, some of which are silly and harmless. However, before the show was greenlit, he landed in hot water for making a huge financial decision without consulting his wife, Joanna Gaines, first. The couple was filming test footage for a potential reality show when they were basically warned that they were too boring. That changed when Chip purchased a ramshackle houseboat (without inspecting it in person first) and broke the news to a blindfolded Joanna as the cameras rolled. "He takes the blindfold off, and there's the semi-truck and this boat with all these holes in it. ... I'm just mad," Joanna recalled on "Today."

Joanna added that she and Chip were financially struggling at the time, which may help explain why Chip wound up in legal trouble over the almost $20,000 he agreed to pay for the leaky vessel. According to Radar, the boat's seller had to file two complaints because Chip wouldn't pay what he owed. The seller won his case, leaving Chip deeper in the hole; in addition to the boat's cost, he was ordered to fork over $20,000 in legal fees. "I did get done dirty," Chip insisted on "Today." Unfortunately, this wasn't the only time he angered Joanna or got dragged to court.

Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines' love story doesn't have the romantic start many fans might imagine. Instead, it begins with anger and atrocious etiquette. In her memoir "The Magnolia Story," Joanna recalls how Chip kept her waiting for an hour and a half when they set up their first date. She was so furious when he finally showed up that one of her roommates had to let him inside her apartment. "He didn't apologize for being late, either," she writes. Joanna almost didn't give Chip a second date, although her biggest issue with him wasn't his tardiness but his talkativeness. However, they decided to meet again — and Joanna was rewarded with radio silence for months.

Joanna was unable to make their second date for a pretty serious reason: She had to undergo a microdiscectomy, which involves surgically removing part of a disc in the spine. Joanna didn't hear from Chip while she was in the hospital. In a conversation she recorded in her memoir, she told him, "Everyone thought it was rude that you didn't call after that." His response? "Huh. Well, I apologize, Jo. I didn't even think about that."

What was even more inconsiderate is that Chip didn't ask Joanna out again for months. She later learned that he and a friend had made a bet to basically see who could ghost their dates the longest. "I really wanted that fifty dollars from John! That's the only reason I didn't call," he told Joanna. Many women would consider a potential partner prioritizing a measly amount of money over her feelings a major red flag, but for some reason, Joanna didn't block Chip's number and give him a taste of his own medicine.

Chip Gaines has come under fire from fans for being a bad dog dad before. In 2023, he shared a photo of his youngest son, Crew Gaines, sitting astride one of the family's beloved pets while the somewhat irritated-looking pooch tried to relax on the porch. "Please don't let kiddos ride dogs! ... Ask the ER docs how many times they see photos like these end up with bites to the face," wrote one commenter. Others expressed concern that the boy's weight might hurt the dog, and it wasn't the first time Chip didn't take a pet's well-being into consideration — his negligence had previously resulted in his dogs regularly getting caged at the pound.

Back when Chip and Joanna Gaines lived near Baylor University in Waco, Texas, they often allowed their dogs to stay outside, unleashed and unfenced. In "The Magnolia Story," Chip grouses about one neighbor who kept reporting the free-ranging pooches to animal control. "There were times when the officer would call the dogs right off of our porch ... They'd hop right in his van, and off they'd go, back for another stay in the pound," he recalls.

Chip and Joanna Gaines were fined each time this happened. While Joanna wanted to pay up, Chip insisted on ignoring the citations. "I absolutely refused to pay out of some misguided form of principle," he explained. But when the couple racked up over $2,000 in fines, the law came looking for them. Joanna, who had recently given birth to the couple's first child, was the one facing arrest, but Chip gallantly got the tickets swapped to his name — and got a taste of what his dogs experienced each time they were taken away in a stranger's car.

According to two of Chip Gaines' former business partners, he screwed them out of a big payday. Before Chip and Joanna Gaines found HGTV fame, Chip had a company called Magnolia Real Estate, which he co-owned with Rick L. Clark and John L. Lewis. In 2017, Clark and Lewis filed a $1 million lawsuit accusing Chip of keeping them in the dark about his deal with HGTV to film a reality series, which presumably would have increased their company's cash flow once it hit the airwaves.

Clark and Lewis claimed that Chip committed fraud by buying them out before their business got all that sweet free HGTV promotion — or before they could demand that he fork over more money to be given full control of the business. They wrote in their legal filings, "Chip Gaines conspired to eliminate his business partners — notwithstanding their longstanding friendship — in order to ensure that he alone would profit from Magnolia Realty's association with 'Fixer Upper,'" (via the Waco Tribune-Herald).

In addition to procuring legal counsel, Chip responded to the lawsuit on X. "Fyi: Ive had the same cell # 15 yrs.. same email for 20 yrs. No one called or emailed? 4 years later 'friends' reach out via lawsuit.. Humm," he wrote. Chip celebrated a legal victory when Clark and Lewis' lawsuit was dismissed in 2020. He had filed a counterclaim against his ex-partners one year prior, accusing them of defamation. As reported by KWTX, all parties involved settled out of court in 2023, and as part of their agreement, Clark and Lewis would not go through with appealing their lawsuit.

In a November 2016 report on Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines' place of worship, Antioch Community Church, BuzzFeed laid out some of its pastor's preachings. Among them was the view that homosexuality is something that can be changed and that same-sex couples shouldn't be allowed to marry. Weeks later, after Donald Trump was elected president, Chip penned a since-deleted blog post for the Magnolia website that could have been construed as not just his thoughts about America's political climate but also his reaction to criticism of his church.

Chip never expressed support for same-sex marriage but did write, "We care about you for the simple fact that you are a person, our neighbor on planet earth. It's not about what color your skin is, how much money you have in the bank, your political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender, nationality or faith." He also possibly had his church and the backlash to its teachings in mind when he wrote, "Our family wants to fight for a world that knows how to lovingly disagree. ... If your position only extends love to the people who agree with you, we want to respectfully challenge that position." Of course, not all disagreements are created equal, as some of them involve whether or not certain citizens get to have certain rights.

As of this writing, Chip also hasn't addressed reports that he donated $1,000 to his sister when she campaigned for her local school board with a little critical race theory fearmongering. However, in 2021, he did tell The Hollywood Reporter that he and Joanna wanted to foster diversity in the workplace. "We've got nearly 700 employees, and one of our biggest passions is making this group represent all people," he said.

In 2024, Chip Gaines really stepped in it after he got dragged into the X discourse surrounding the future of Baylor University basketball coach Scott Drew. It started when the Barstool Kentucky X account joked that Chip and Joanna Gaines were possibly the key to keeping Drew in Texas. At the time, there were reports that the University of Kentucky was making a play for the coach. In response to an X user who suggested that Drew might switch schools for a bigger payday, Chip wrote, "Money is boring.. everybody's got money. We've got God on our side." He added an eye-roll emoji to his remark, making it just a tad more hoity-toity.

Chip's poverty erasure was not well-received, with one critic writing, "Can't believe your insensitive comment considering how many people are suffering and struggling right now." Chip, who is a multimillionaire, made matters worse by getting into an argument over Biblical interpretation and attempting to convince himself that he is the camel that will fit through the eye of that needle. When an X user mentioned what the Bible says about how hard it is for the rich to get into heaven, he argued, "Harder, not 'impossible.'"

This wasn't a problem Chip could simply slap some shiplap on; instead, he tried to right his quickly sinking social media ship by offering to send money to some of the people who criticized him. However, his financial flub never should have happened, seeing as how he and Joanna Gaines were broke as a joke back in the day. "When we first got married the only money we had was what was in Chip's pocket," Joanna told People. "He always had a wad of cash, but we were broke."