Tarek El Moussa and Christina El Moussa Address the Fallout of Their Marriage and the Future of Flip or Flop

The HGTV co-stars speak separately about their personal drama

By Samantha Schnurr Feb 21, 2017 3:06 PMTags

These reality stars are facing the reality of their personal drama. 

After announcing their separation late last years, the stars of HGTV's Flip or Flop have had their own world flipped upside down since news broke of their personal turmoil. Fans learned of their marriage trouble after police were called to the couple's house.

While there was no violence or no charges were filed, according to an incident report obtained by E! News, Christina "was crying and shaking" when police arrived on the scene. She said Tarek "took a handgun, put it in his backpack and ran outside." A team of police officers and a helicopter subsequently searched for Tarek and ordered him to drop the weapon.  

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After seven years of marriage and two children together, Tarek formally filed for divorce in January and now, the two are addressing all of the spectacle surrounding them from their points of view. One thing remains clear—they are committed to working together for the success of their show and the benefit of their children. 

"Our primary focus is and always will be our kids," Christina told Good Morning America's Michael Strahan in a solo interview on Tuesday. "We continue to work together and there's a lot of  false stories and a lot of hype, but, in the end, we're just normal, nice people who just want to be the best parents."

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Christina continued to focus on the positive, calling their kids "amazing." 

"Taylor, she's six and she's awesome. She actually just won an award at school for being joyful, so just shows our kids are transitioning well," she said. "Tarek and I are friends."

Meanwhile, Tarek sat down with Today's Joe Fryer and shared his account of their crumbling marriage. "As time went on, we got distant from each other. There's a lot going on in our lives," he said. "We tried the counseling and it just really wasn't working."

However, he echoed his ex when addressing their children and role as parents. "It doesn't mean we're not going to remain friendly," he added. "The number one goal is to co-parent our children and we have to make sure we remain friendly because we know how important it is for them to have good parents."

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While the kids are young to understand the extent of their publicity, the family has become the subject of endless reports, many of which both stars say are untrue. Tarek used his seat in the spotlight to address his incident with the police, which he said "got really blown out of proportion."

"There's mountain lions and bobcats and rattle snacks and big wildlife back there," he said of the area behind his home. "I went up for a hike to scout some trails. It wasn't a big deal. I didn't understand." Was he suicidal as some accounts questioned? "Absolutely never," he retorted. 

As for the fate of their wildly popular show, both stars want it to go on. 

"I'm not going to say it's easy. It's like anything. There's challenges in life. We love filming. That's our job. We've been doing it a long time," he told Fryer of shooting Season 7. "We love releasing a good product for our fans and just had to fight through it and do the best we could and I think it turned out great."

While in remission for thyroid and testicular cancer, which he revealed for the first time, Tarek is looking ahead and hopes to continue doing the show they both love. 

As he later told Al Roker and Sheinelle Jones, "We're looking on moving forward."

(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)