A realtor went after Tarek and Christina El Moussa of Flip or Flop fame for unpaid wages in February. In March, the city of Minneapolis sued Rehab Addict star Nicole Curtis. Last month, Fixer Upper's Chip Gaines was sued by a former business partner.
What's with the sudden wave of issues washing over some of HGTV's biggest stars? Is the next big trend in home decor going to be wall-to-wall legal documents?
Well, if you read a lot about celebrities and the business of entertainment in general, you may have noticed something. Namely, everyone's always suing someone or getting sued.
Well, not everyone and not always, but countless A-listers have gone by the name "plaintiff" or "respondent" at times. They've filed lawsuits because they feel they've been cheated, or someone's using their likeness or song without permission, or the boss was a creep, or a stalker needs to stay away—or they've gotten served, by a former manager seeking his fair share of the cut, or because they borrowed a bridge for a tune, or a paparazzo got slugged.
Every major studio, the record labels, the publishing houses, the networks—all employ lawyers to try to ward off getting sued, but also to protect themselves when they are inevitably sued.
Legal fees are part of the cost of doing business and, quite often, part of being famous. And the more famous you get, the bigger a target you are—and the more everyone notices if your name shows up on a court docket.
Welcome to mainstream fame, rising stars of HGTV!
"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," Chip Gaines tweeted on April 28 after a former partner sued him for $1 million, alleging Chip cheated them out of a fair price for their share of Magnolia Realty, which is now a piece of Chip and Joanna Gaines' Magnolia empire.
Which is not to say that plenty of famous people didn't deserve to get sued, but the star of the most-watched show on HGTV seems to be suggesting that the timing in his case has more to do with his improved financial position rather than anything he actually did.
Chip and Joanna were also sued for up to $1 million in October by the owner of the property next to their Magnolia Market at the Silos in Waco, Texas, who after acquiring the lot wanted to charge $10 for visitors to Magnolia to park in their alley. The plaintiff claims that a metal gate the Gaineses put up between the properties is cutting off access to the alley.
Magnolia's attorney told the Waco Tribune that the Gaineses put up the gate so that their customers wouldn't think they were charging the $10.
Meanwhile, the El Moussas are being sued for "only" $37,000, which when you consider the multimillion-dollar claims that Hollywood tends to trade in, doesn't seem like a huge amount—but now that their pending divorce has earned them more headline real estate in the past six months than in the past six years, every little hiccup in their journey has become notable.
Case in point: the suit was filed in February and only came to light this week, because people are digging deep on the El Moussas, whose fame recently went from HGTV-fueled niche status to weekly magazine cover regulars. (For the record, a source close to the El Moussas called the claim "absurd," saying the parents of two haven't even met the plaintiff.)
But the people who found fame on HGTV may also seem to be targeted disproportionately because, in real life, they run businesses that in turn have provided fodder for their shows. And businesses should always budget for legal fees.
As font of wisdom Chip Gaines also tweeted last week, "I get this question a lot: Reality tv vs Owning a small biz? Running a small business is 1000x tougher than tv. Business is tough, tv is fun....2) but both can be so rewarding, when you're doing something you're really proud of!"
Whenever goods and services are being produced and sold, there's a chance that there will be dissatisfied customers at any stage of the game. Sometimes the customer really will be right, and sometimes not—but if you're a realtor or contractor or decorator who's also on TV, it's a given that more than the warring parties will take an interest in the proceedings.
Celebrity home stager Meredith Baer, who scored her own HGTV series Staged to Perfection after appearing on the network's Selling L.A., was sued last September for $1.3 million by a client who alleged Baer filled her New York townhouse with "defective" furniture.
Her company told the New York Daily News that the lawsuit was a "frivolous" complaint filed by a man who had just changed his mind about the decor, and they fully stood behind their work.
In 2015, John Colaneri and Anthony Corrino of HGTV's Kitchen Cousins and America's Most Desperate Kitchens filed for bankruptcy after a New Jersey couple won a $857,894 judgment against them in arbitration, having sued them and their construction company for doing a supposedly shoddy renovation job on their kitchen.
Neither suit means that the defendants, who'd been in business for years before scoring their own shows, weren't honest people or otherwise good at their jobs—but once they were on TV, their involvement in legal proceedings became matters of public interest.
And if one lawsuit can make or break a business, or at least take on the guise of a scandalous blemish once a person is famous, imagine how thrown Nicole Curtis must feel by the mass interest in her personal life and un-televised real estate ventures.
Just days ago, Curtis, whose show Rehab Addict premiered on DIY in 2010 and moved to HGTV in 2014, settled a lawsuit filed against her by the city of Minneapolis that was years in the making.
Last summer the city was considering litigation over a tear-down property Curtis bought from the city for $2 and vowed to refurbish to new glory—in 2012. With the work still not done, the city filed suit in March. According to the Star Tribune, the two sides settled last week, and Curtis—who's also embroiled in a custody battle with the father of her almost 2-year-old son—is required to deposit $150,000 in construction costs in an account and now has till Oct. 15 to complete the project.
Stay tuned.