Inside the rift between HGTV mother-daughter duo Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine, stars of the limited season of ‘Good Bones’

The series quickly became popular on the network, as did its spinoff, “Good Bones: Risky Business.” In August 2023, Hawk announced the series was ending and opened up about the fraught nature of her relationship with Laine on her podcast “MINA AF.”

But in July, HGTV announced that Hawk and Laine would return for a limited season of “Good Bones” — though they worked on separate projects. The first episode premiered on August 14, focusing on Hawk’s renovation of a lake house for her family, and the second and third episodes featured Laine’s renovation of a home for herself in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Business Insider took a look back at Hawk and Laine’s rise to fame and how their relationship shifted in recent years.

Laine and representatives for Hawk did not respond to a request for comment.

Viewers got to know Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine’s family on the series

Because Hawk and Laine’s operation was a family business, their other relatives, including some of Hawk’s siblings, started appearing on the show over the course of its run.

Hawk has five siblings, as she and Laine explained in a video for HGTV: brothers William and CR; Kelsy, a half-sister through her mother; and Tad and Jessica, half-siblings through her father’s second marriage.

Hawk and her husband Stephen, who have been married since 2016, share two children together: Jack, 5, and Charlotte, 2. The pair also cared for Jessica’s daughter, Julie, for some time in 2017, as People reported at the time. 

Although Hawk and Laine described their family tree as “complicated” in their video for HGTV, their blended family appeared happy to HGTV viewers at home as the pair transformed their hometown with a sense of love and community.

But Hawk revealed in August 2023 that things aren’t as simple when the cameras are off.

Hawk said her relationships with Laine and two of her brothers are ‘challenging’

On an episode of “Mina AF,” titled “The Pain Of Staying The Same,” that aired on August 28, 2023, Hawk spoke about change and boundaries, opening up about how her son’s fifth birthday party spurred her to think about how she wanted to approach her relationship with certain members of her family — including Laine — moving forward. 

Jack turned 5 on August 9, 2023, and as she shared on Instagram, Hawk hosted a party for him three days later.

On her podcast, which was recorded ahead of Jack’s birthday, she said she had invited her family members to her kids’ birthday parties in years past, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to invite them that year. 

“My family is challenging, and I’ve been going back and forth about who do I want to be able to be present at this party?” she said. “Will it affect my kids? Will they even notice who’s here and not here? There’s gonna be a bunch of animals. That’s all they care about. Am I being true to myself and my husband by setting appropriate boundaries for certain people to be here or not be here?”

She went on to say that she was unsure if she wanted to invite her mom and some of her siblings because of “the current state of affairs” of their relationships.

“My mom and I aren’t in a great place,” she said. “My brother Tad and I aren’t in a great place. My brother William and I are kind of like nonexistent place. It’s complicated without even being complicated. We don’t really engage much, and the last engagement wasn’t super positive. And that was maybe a year ago.”

Hawk also said she wanted to prioritize inviting people to Jack’s birthday party who are in his day-to-day life, which doesn’t include her family.

“Not only do my mom and my two brothers not fall into that category of being involved in their life on a regular basis, we’re also not on good terms,” she said, adding that members of her family are typically cordial to one another and still gather for family events even if they have tension, largely because it’s important to her father. 

“Whenever there’s an event, we all put our big kid pants on and pretend to be nice to each other and do the event, and then go back to our corners of the universe and talk shit about each other,” Hawk said, adding that her family members had been able to “coexist” on a vacation together, though she didn’t say when. But she went on to say that that system doesn’t work for her anymore.

“I just don’t want to do that,” she said. “Because that doesn’t feel genuine. It doesn’t feel real. And it’s just not what I want my life to be.”

Hawk did not say whether or not she and Stephen decided to invite her mother and brothers to Jack’s birthday party on the podcast episode, though the family members did not appear in any of the photos she posted from the event. In the caption of her Instagram post about the event, she gave a shout-out to the people who support Jack.

Hawk later told People she did not end up inviting those family members to Jack’s birthday. 

Hawk announced the eighth season of ‘Good Bones’ would be its last in August 2023

Hawk shared on a separate podcast episode that was recorded earlier in 2023 but released on August 7 that “Good Bones” was ending after eight seasons.

“It’s the end of an era,” she said in the episode, titled “And That’s A Wrap… Or Is It?”

Hawk said she and HGTV mutually agreed to end the series, adding that the stress of the show was becoming too much for her in part because her team was typically working on five to eight projects at the same time due to the demands of television.

And while she wanted to have a slower work pace, Hawk was concerned about how her employees would be impacted if she chose to step back, as she wouldn’t need as many staff members if she was working on fewer homes at a time. 

“All the things that I was putting on myself, it was making it really, really hard to function as, like, a normal human being, because I always felt the weight of so many other people’s worlds that I put on my shoulders,” she said. “I got to a point where I think I kind of felt like, whether it made sense or not, it felt like I was fighting for my life, or fighting for my family’s life, fighting for my employees’ lives, to figure something out, to find a solution, to find the next thing.”

“I just became a version of myself that I really didn’t like,” she said. 

Ultimately, Hawk said ending the series was the right choice for her husband and children.

Laine didn’t formally comment on “Good Bones” ending, though she did indicate she was open to more opportunities with HGTV in the comments section of an Instagram post.

Laine posted a photo of herself with Hawk on August 10, 2023, promoting the eighth season of the show, and a user commented that they were “bummed” the show was ending.

“Just because Mina says it’s over for her doesn’t mean the future doesn’t hold something for me,” Laine replied.

And after Hawk’s announcement, HGTV said in a statement, “While this is the end of ‘Good Bones’ as we know it, we’re currently in talks with Mina and Karen about other projects.”

Hawk shared her relationship with Laine suffered when they filmed ‘Good Bones’

Hawk shed more light on her relationship with her mother in an interview with People published on September 7, 2023, saying that they were “in some of the most challenging places I felt we’ve been” when they filmed season eight.

She also revealed that in the season eight premiere they had”a knockdown drag-out [fight] during the demo.”

Hawk went on to tell People that she has always felt her relationship with her mother was complicated despite what people may have gleaned from “Good Bones.”

“And from what people know from the show, my mom and I are thick as thieves, best friends, and because they just don’t know anything else, they assume that’s how it’s always been,” she told People. “And I think a lot of people really aspire to that, so they don’t want to know other stuff, which is fine. But my mom and I have had a very rocky relationship since I have memories.”

Hawk also told People that she and Laine bonded when she was in college and when they started their business, but she never felt close to her in a traditional parent-child sense.

“When we became close, we became close as friends,” she told People. “We never were really close as ‘You are my mom; you take care of me. I’m your daughter; I look to you to be a safe place.'”

Hawk also shared in an October 2023 podcast episode that she and her mother were not speaking, saying, “We do not talk. We haven’t in a long time.” 

HGTV announced ‘Good Bones’ would return with a limited season in July 2024

On July 17, HGTV announced a new season of “Good Bones” would premiere on HGTV on August 14, nearly a year after season eight premiered. 

The new series spotlights Hawk and Laine renovating homes, but unlike in past seasons, they won’t work together. The announcement also said the series would only have a three-week run.

“The newest season of HGTV’s hit series ‘Good Bones’ will follow Mina Starsiak Hawk and her mom Karen E Laine as their lives evolve past their time renovating homes in Indianapolis,” a press release for the show reviewed by Business Insider said.

“Mina will purchase a very dated but ‘groovy’ lake house just north of Indy and give it much needed cosmetic updates to create the peaceful family getaway of her dreams. Karen will set off on a new adventure in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she’ll risk her retirement nest egg on a bungalow that requires more work than anticipated to become a colorful beachy oasis,” it said.

Hawk and Laine don’t appear in season 9 together

The first episode aired on August 14 and focused on Hawk’s renovation of a lake house she and her husband Stephen bought for their family in Martinsville, Indiana. Laine encouraged people to watch the series with an Instagram photo of Hawk she shared the day the episode aired.

“‘Good Bones: New Beginnings’ starts tonight, 8/14, at 9 pm on @hgtv with Mina’s lakehouse Reno,” she wrote. “My Wilmington NC Reno will air 8/21 and 28, same bat time, same bat station.”

The first episode of the season also gave insight into how Hawk is moving forward professionally after distancing herself from her mother. 

In episode one, Hawk said that she now only has one full-time employee for Two Chicks and a Hammer and will be doing far fewer renovations a year than the 12 the company used to do annually. The episode showed her renting out the former headquarters for Two Chicks and a Hammer, and she also decided to close the original store location, District Co., and reopen it in another area.

Laine did not appear in episode one, nor did Hawk mention her.

But on August 21, Hawk posted an Instagram photo of Laine and “Good Bones” star Michael J. Coyle to promote the show, confirming in the caption that she wouldn’t appear in Laine’s episodes of the show.

“Another new episode tonight at 9 y’all! Check it out on @hgtv 💪🏼 When you’re not designing for resale you get to make it yours and use SO much more color. It’s a whole different ball game,” she wrote. “And before you ask, no I’m not in it. But you’ll see some familiar faces!!! So check it out.”

In episodes two and three, Laine spent time in both Indianapolis and Wilmington, North Carolina, where she bought a fixer-upper for herself. 

“I retired in 2019, and I can do anything I want,” Laine said of her approach to the next chapter of her life.

She added that she wants to be in Wilmington because she loves the beach town, but also plans to spend time in Indianapolis with her grandkids, referring to her son CR’s four children.

During episodes two and three, CR’s children appeared with Laine, as did her daughter Kelsy, who gave birth to her first child during filming. 

“This is the first time in my life I’m in a position where I can really invest time in being the kind of grandparent I want to be,” she said.

Laine did not mention Hawk’s children or daughter in her episodes, and Hawk and Laine have not made many announcements about future projects they may be working on with HGTV, either.