Tarek El Moussa Admits He 'Wasn't the Best Guy' to Ex-Wife Christina Hall, Says Divorce 'Really Broke Me'

The HGTV star opened up about his 2016 divorce from his former 'Flip or Flop' co-host on 'The Jennifer Hudson Show' Wednesday

Tarek El Moussa is reflecting on his painful divorce.

During an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show Wednesday, the HGTV star, 42, opened up about how his 2016 split from his ex-wife Christina Hall affected him.

“I wasn’t the best guy during those years," admitted El Moussa, who was married to his former Flip or Flop co-host, 40, for seven years. “When you’re going through multiple cancers back-to-back and your hormones are off and you’re in surgeries and you have no thyroid, you do things you normally wouldn’t do,” he continued, before clarifying that none of that is “an excuse” for his behavior, but “it was tough.”

“But you know, what really broke me was my divorce,” El Moussa added. “That was exponentially more difficult than every issue in my entire life put together. And somehow, I got through it.”

Related: Tarek El Moussa Leaves a Sweet Comment on Ex Christina Hall's Photo of Day Out with Their Son Brayden

The TV personality is now happily married to Heather Rae El Moussa and the pair welcomed their first child together, son Tristan Jay, 14 months, in January 2023.

His divorce from Hall is a topic he discusses in-depth in his memoir, Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunities in Distress—in Real Estate, Business and Life, which he released on Feb 6.

In January, prior to the release of his book, the Flip or Flop star told PEOPLE that his relationship with his ex-wife is now “better than it’s ever been.”

Related: Tarek El Moussa Finally Tells His Version of Gun Incident That Ended Marriage to Christina Hall (Exclusive) 

"I hold nothing against Christina. I don't blame her. I understand why she did what she did," he said of Hall, with whom he shares daughter Taylor, 13, and son Brayden, 8.

Though he admitted he was “lost and sad and lonely” after their split, he said he no longer holds any grudges. “We had a lot of hard years through my sicknesses and my mental health struggles from the testosterone. So no ill feelings, and I understand her point of view," he added.

Nowadays, they “all communicate well, even Heather and Christina,” he said. “We really focus on the kids.”

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Tarek also said that he thinks it’s “very important” for his kids to eventually read his memoir, “because they know me as the dad they know today — happy, positive, loving, fun, caring, giving — and I think it's important for them to understand, no, I wasn't always like that.”

"And in their lives, they're going to go through hard times and it's not always going to be rainbows and butterflies," he added. "When hard times come, you have to be prepared, you got to be ready to fight and you got to keep going."

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