Real Estate, Reality TV and Riches: What Tarek and Christina’s ‘Flip or Flop’ Split Reveals About Donald Trump’s America
Just weeks after Americans elected a reality TV star as president, two more icons from the world of unscripted entertainment broke through to the national consciousness, offering a parable of sorts about the country’s new socio-political reality.
Tarek and Christina El Moussa orbit much lower in the celebrity firmament than Donald Trump. But the husband-and-wife real estate investors behind the HGTV series “Flip or Flop” have generated headlines and voluminous Internet traffic with a lurid breakup tale involving guns, rumored infidelities and an apparently epic domestic disturbance reportedly requiring 11 deputies plus a police helicopter. That event happened last May but somehow managed to stay under wraps for seven months, despite the outsize law-enforcement presence and the El Moussas’ celebrity. Who says privacy is no longer possible in the social-media age?
The salacious backstory has not surprisingly boosted the ratings for “Flip or Flop,” in which the El Moussas chase big investment returns by fixing up and reselling (“flipping”) outdated homes in or near their native Orange County, Calif. A new half-hour episode, which aired on Jan. 19 but was filmed before the split became public, delivered 2.1 million total viewers and ranked in the top 20 cable programs for the night among viewers aged 18 to 49, according to Nielsen.
As it happens, the fuss over “Flip or Flop,” which premiered in 2013, arrives almost as perfectly timed as the on-camera “surprises” the El Moussas inevitably endure when they tear out one of the ugly kitchens or bathrooms in their investment properties. The couple has not publicly stated their political preferences, not that they matter in any case — you might be hard-pressed to find more fitting avatars for Trump’s America. Here you have a pair who have described themselves as devastated by the 2008 financial meltdown that laid the groundwork for Trump’s meteoric rise to the Oval Office. And they have pursued their fortune following the very paths blazed by Trump: real-estate speculation and reality TV stardom.
The premise behind “Flip or Flop” fits right in the wheelhouse of HGTV, which has banked on shows about attractive people overseeing the purchase or rehab of dream homes. Every episode follows a formula: the couple visits and buys a distressed house; they argue about the budget and design details of the improvement project; they put the rehabbed home back on the market. In the lingo of TV executives, HGTV’s shows are “aspirational” and “blue-sky.” Maybe pie-in-the-sky, too. Some investors complain that unlike many professional house-flippers, the “Flip or Flop” couple seem to endure precious few flops. Most of the televised deals, in fact, produce unusually rich returns. Take one beaten-down home in Whittier, a Los Angeles suburb, which had bad stucco, termite damage and ducts wrapped in asbestos. The El Moussas nevertheless claimed an eventual profit of $105,700 on the $470,500 sale price, for a nearly 30% return on investment. As Tarek says in his weekly voice-over introducing the show: “You never know what you’ve got ’til you walk through that door.”
By HGTV standards, the El Moussas make for oddly impersonal hosts. The show has alluded to real-life events, including Christina’s pregnancy and the birth of their second child, but the hosts themselves remain largely opaque. Tarek is a bro with a good grasp of numbers; Christina is a blonde babe who likes her Travertine tile; that’s about it.
Witness the couple (in an episode titled “Natural Disaster”) debating the finishes on a Tuscan-themed McMansion in Anaheim Hills in northern Orange County:
“So we’re going for a honed marble,” Christina says.
Tarek: “So you’re talking about taking a normal slab, polishing it down so it has a matte finish.”
Christina: “Exactly. It’s gonna cost extra to do that, but it’s gonna look beautiful and match the look of the house.”
Not all the dialogue “Flip or Flop” sounds like it was recited from a housewares catalog, but the show has nowhere near the personality of some other HGTV fare. Chip Gaines, the remodeler on HGTV’s “Fixer Upper,” is a toothy lug with a penchant for dad jokes who constantly flirts with his ebullient wife Joanna. Hilary Farr and David Visentin, the Canadian duo on “Love It or List It,” aim to cultivate the reality-TV version of a flinty Tracy-Hepburn rivalry.
You’re not going to enjoy that kind of mischief on “Flip or Flop.” That may help explain why viewers seized upon the news of the couple’s split: The drama suggested a depth (and perhaps a terror?) to their relationship that the show does not. According to TMZ, Tarek grabbed a gun and fled the couple’s home on a hiking trail, where he was confronted by deputies, who later confiscated more guns from his residence. As rumors cropped up of infidelities and an impending divorce, Tarek slammed “lies, innuendo, salacious gossip and ‘fake news’” — the kind of vocabulary often seen in President Trump’s tweets.
That’s not the only parallel with our new Commander-in-Chief. Late last year, an Associated Press investigation ripped the El Moussas for touting get-rich-quick home-flipping classes under the banner Success Path Education. The program charged students thousands of dollars for training sessions and software that, according to some attendees, failed to deliver on promises. One student who paid $1,798 for sessions called for additional help as she struggled to put together her first deal. That could be arranged, she was told — for another $8,000.
This of course will sound familiar to anyone who followed Trump’s path to the White House. Days after the November election, the president-elect agreed to pay $25 million to settle a series of lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University, which peddled real-estate investing classes later dubbed “useless” and “fraudulent,” with what plaintiffs claimed were hard-sell tactics.
Some critics wonder whether the marital distress might hurt the El Moussa brand. Perhaps, but don’t count on it. The Success Path website is still touting their business savvy. The couple have said they “plan to continue our professional life together.” HGTV has said the series remains in production and hasn’t taken anything off the table; some reports have suggested a spinoff with Christina might be possible. Kate Gosselin, after all, kept making her own reality series, “Kate Plus Eight,” following her widely publicized split with husband Jon.
And in Donald Trump’s America, one’s personal brand need not be hampered by setback or even facts, alternative or otherwise. Voters sent him to the White House in spite of Trump University, in spite of personal scandals, in spite of vague or nonexistent policies — based almost entirely on faith that he would make things better. He will somehow turn a beaten-down fixer (“American carnage”) into a fabulous and profitable showplace.
You never know what you’ve got until you walk through that door.
Follow Scott Collins on Twitter @scottcollins or at linkedin.com/in/scottecollins.
