December 2016: El Moussa and Christina announced they were separating.
In May 2016, police went to the couple’s home because of “a call of a possibly suicidal male with a gun,” TMZ reported at the time. El Moussa was seen running from his home with a firearm, which he dropped after police told him from a helicopter to release it, TMZ reported.
Seven months later, El Moussa and Christina announced their separation, acknowledging the incident in a statement to Us Weekly.
“Like many couples, we have had challenges in our marriage,” the statement said. “We had an unfortunate misunderstanding about six months ago and the police were called to our house in an abundance of caution.”
“There was no violence and no charges were filed. We chose to get counseling to sort out our relationship. Together, we have decided to separate while we reevaluate the future of our marriage,” the statement went on to say.
El Moussa reflected on the incident in his 2024 book, “Flip Your Life,” writing that he took his gun with him on a hike because of wildlife in the area after an argument with Christina, though that was not clear to Christina when she saw him hop their fence with the weapon in tow.
“That was the very last time we were together as a family: with Christina walking down the driveway, crying, and me sitting there in handcuffs, asking myself, ‘What in the world is going on?'” he wrote of the incident, adding that he was taking testosterone at the time. He quit the next day and ended up living in a halfway house shortly after.
Speaking to BI about his life in January, El Moussa said that hitting rock bottom helped him see what his true priorities are.
“I didn’t even realize how obsessed I was with my kids until I hit rock bottom, until I was on my own, until I started rebuilding my life,” he told BI.
“I wasn’t present. I wasn’t putting in the work,” he went on to say. “I wasn’t putting in the time that I put into flipping houses. I needed to put that time into being a dad.”
