- "The Flip Off" premiered on HGTV on Wednesday.
- Tarek and Heather Rae El Moussa compete against Christina Haack in the show's house-flipping contest.
- The premiere featured plenty of drama, from reno stress to tension between Haack and Josh Hall.
After months of anticipation, HGTV's "The Flip Off" premiered on Wednesday.
The show sees exes Christina Haack and Tarek El Moussa of "Flip or Flop" fame compete to see who can make the most money from a house flip.
They were each set to team up with their new spouses for the show, and Tarek El Moussa completed the series with his wife, Heather Rae El Moussa. Haack, however, took on the challenge alone after her split from Josh Hall in July 2024.
The series premiere was full of real estate and personal drama as the contestants secured homes for the show and Haack's marriage to Hall ended.
Read on to check out the most dramatic moments of "The Flip Off" so far.
At the beginning of the episode, Haack and the El Moussas attend a soccer game to support Haack and Tarek El Moussa's son, Brayden.
Haack and her ex-husband started chatting about business on the sidelines, and she mentioned that some house-flipping projects she and Hall took on in Tennessee weren't going well.
"So, you needed the master there," Tarek El Moussa said. "I wasn't there to help you guys. If you guys want, if you pay for my plane ticket, I'll go help you guys."
Haack disagreed and asked about his real-estate projects, which he also said had been difficult because of increasing interest rates. He implied that Haack couldn't have known about that without him.
"Oh god. You act like I've never flipped a freakin house," Haack said. "Can you show some respect for your older children's mom?"
The pair and Heather Rae El Moussa agreed to compete in "The Flip Off" shortly after.
As part of the competition, each team was given a week to find a home to flip for the series.
Haack and Hall thought they found the perfect home on their first day of searching, putting in an offer on a property and even taunting the El Moussas about the find.
Just two days before the deadline to find a home, they discovered a lien was placed against the house, which meant they couldn't buy it within the needed timeline.
They found another property to renovate before the deadline was up, but it added stress to the process for the pair.
Hall and his father completed the demolition portion of his and Haack's flip instead of hiring a team, both to save money and because Hall said he enjoys demos.
Amid the project, Hall spoke to his father about El Moussa's approach toward flips, as El Moussa doesn't do much of the manual labor for his projects.
"Tarek, he says, 'I'm not handy. I'm not getting dirty. I'm not sweating,'" Hall said.
Hall then FaceTimed El Moussa, and when he answered, El Moussa appeared to be sitting on a couch.
"When I was a rookie flipper, I used to do the work, too," El Moussa responded. "When you're a pro like me, you get to sit on the big couch."
El Moussa taunted Hall, saying Haack would go over budget and "mismanage" their flip.
"Get out here, act like a man, and put on a shirt that's not $700, and you can save money on demo," Hall responded.
In one scene of the premiere, Hall and Haack discussed the competition while driving to the property they're flipping.
Hall said he would do "whatever it takes to win" and added, "Halls rule." Haack didn't immediately respond, which seemed to aggravate him.
"Remember, you're a Hall now," he said. "Don't get confused in this competition about what your last name is."
"When I met Josh, my name was still Christina El Moussa on everything," Haack told producers in a one-on-one interview. "Josh did not like that, and he was all about me becoming a Hall."
The scene cut back to Haack and Hall in the car. Haack got confused when Hall mentioned something about a billboard they passed, which led Hall to call Haack "rude" and say he wished she would "shut up" and that she was "pissing" him off.
Speaking to producers, Haack said Hall had been "a bit moody lately."
"Josh knows that Tarek and I have a history," she said. "I'm sure some of it is the stress of the competition."
HGTV shared a shorter version of the car clip ahead of the premiere, and Hall responded on his Instagram story, saying it was "manufactured drama." In response, Haack then shared a photo of herself crying, which she said was taken after one of her days filming with Hall.
You can read more about their split here.
Later in the episode, Haack invited Tarek El Moussa to her home, where she told him that she and Hall had split up after a "blowup over nothing."
"Things with Josh have been bad for a long time. Not just kinda bad, like bad," she said. "The kids literally asked me to leave. They told me he's not nice to me."
"You make him very insecure," she told El Moussa. "Every time we would barely joke at soccer or if I laughed at you, he, like, would not speak to me for two to three days. I would get the silent treatment."
"He doesn't like me," Haack said of Hall. "He calls me cocky. He thinks I'm arrogant when we both know I'm not cocky or arrogant. I just do work."
Haack then got emotional, reflecting on how difficult her personal life has been since she and El Moussa separated in 2016.
"I feel like I try to hide it and act like I'm not affected, but then I just do more stupid things to try to make myself feel better," she said through tears. "And I just keep doing it. And getting into things too fast that I know aren't right."
El Moussa told Haack not to be hard on herself, and they both apologized for the pain they caused each other over the last nine years.
During the competition, Tarek and Heather Rae El Moussa discussed their design plans for their kitchen and living area, with the former "Selling Sunset" star showing her husband samples of the cabinets she planned to use in the kitchen.
Tarek El Moussa asked to see options, but his wife told him she had already made her selection, saying, "I don't need your decision."
"Wow, you don't need my decision," he repeated. "Wow."
He also questioned his wife's intention to "take risks" with their design, and she replied that she didn't want it to be "boring."
"It's Heather's house," she said. "And yours."
"Just like our son. It's Heather's son. And mine," Tarek El Moussa said as his wife laughed. "This house is yours. And mine."
Heather Rae El Moussa also became frustrated when her husband suggested a tweak to her vision for the fireplace.
"You're upsetting me. You're upsetting me," she said. "I am so stressed out. You don't even understand. Everyone's gonna be talking smack about me against her."
In an interview with producers, she then said that she wanted to prove to Haack that she was just as good a designer as she was.
As Haack's kitchen came together, she realized the spot where she originally intended to put her pantry looked out of place.
"With all the divorce drama, I overlooked a major flaw in the kitchen cabinet design," she said. "My original plan called for the pantry to be on the left side of the kitchen. But now, I think we need to move it to the right so we can open the space up."
However, the change made her want to add more counters and cabinets to the left side of the room. Her counters were being delivered the next day, so she wasn't sure she could make the change happen.
Luckily, her supplier had the additional counters, so Haack's vision came to life exactly as she pictured.
Haack faced another hiccup during judging. She poured ice water down her sink as her kitchen was being evaluated, not knowing the drain wasn't fully attached. Water ended up all over the floor, and the guest judge for the episode, Heather Dubrow of "Real Housewives of Orange County," dinged her for the mishap.
The El Moussas won the kitchen challenge, though Dubrow said she preferred Haack's design.