Tarek El Moussa Made Call to HGTV to Get Josh Hall Off ‘The Flip Off’ for Christina Haack (Exclusive)

Tarek El Moussa stepped up for his ex-wife Christina Haack during an unimaginable crisis.

When Haack and her third husband Josh Hall split in the middle of filming their HGTV show, The Flip Off, it was her first husband, Tarek, who had her back, she reveals in this week’s PEOPLE cover story.

On the competition series, which originally pit Haack and Hall against Tarek and his second wife Heather Rae El Moussa in a house-flipping showdown, things took an unexpectedly dramatic turn when Haack and Hall’s marriage ended weeks into production. The show captured some tense moments between Haack and Hall, but Haack says in the hours following their final fight that wasn’t caught on camera, Tarek played a crucial role.

While Christina was still reeling, “Tarek told our attorney and told the network for me that Josh would no longer be a part of the show,” she reveals. “They said ‘No problem. That’s fine.’ They just said, ‘We need Christina to have a scene where she tells you, Tarek, that Josh is no longer going to be a part of the show.’”

That scene was filmed about a week later, she says.

“[The producers] didn’t tell me anything. They just said, ‘Tarek’s coming over. We want you to tell him that you and Josh broke up,’ says Haack. “But for me, [the scene] was never really about Josh. It was more about me and Tarek and everything that’s happened since then.”

The result was a heart-wrenching episode in which the exes forgave each other “100%” for their past transgressions eight years after the end of their marriage.

“I think that scene lasted probably an hour and a half in reality and everyone was crying: the camera operators, the production crew. It was emotional,” she says. “Through the years we have obviously had talks, and we’ve apologized to each other, but not on camera and not like that. I don’t think he expected me to go there.”

Since they split in December 2016 following a harrowing incident in which Tarek fled their family home with a gun, Haack says, “We’ve both taken ownership for our responsibilities. We’ve known each other since we were 22 and I respect him. He’s a hard worker. He’s a great dad. He’s come a long way in our relationship. Both of us have a lot of gratitude and both of us have a lot of respect for each other.”

In his 2024 memoir, Tarek described the weeks immediately after the split as “physical and emotional hell” during which he was drinking excessively and going through with withdrawal from testosterone. He previously told PEOPLE of that period, “I hold nothing against Christina. I understand why she did what she did. We had a lot of hard years through my sicknesses and my mental health struggles.”

The exes continued to film their show, Flip or Flop, together until 2022 and recently, he’s said, their relationship is “better than it’s been ever since the separation.”

These days, they’re co-stars once again and part of a happily blended family, which also includes Tarek’s new wife Heather Rae El Moussa, Christina’s new boyfriend Chris Larocca and four kids: Tarek and Christina share Taylor, 15, and Brayden, 10; Tarek and Heather share Tristan, 2; and Christina and her second husband Ant Anstead share Hudson, 6.

“My relationships with everyone improved [after splitting from Hall], and we have a bigger appreciation for each other,” says Haack of her co-parenting cluster. “I think my kids love that they know that anyone can come over here. It’s not weird at all. It’s wonderful.”