Tarek's Twisted Double Life
Tarek and Christina El Moussa’s divorce explodes as shocking new details about how he treated her emerge
As the cameras rolled, Tarek and Christina El Moussa flashed big, bright smiles, acting like the perfect couple.
But when filming stopped on their hit HGTV show, Flip or Flop, on this particular day last summer, the mood changed dramatically. “Tarek started yelling at her in front of everyone,” a source who witnessed the ugly scene tells In Touch exclusively. “It was right in front of the director, cameramen, even the contractors who were working on the home with them. Tarek was hot and tired and grumpy, and got angry at Christina for screwing up takes and flubbing her lines. It got really awkward for everyone on set, and Christina finally walked away and went to her car and cried.”
It wasn’t the first or last time Tarek treated Christina horribly.
Behind the scenes of their hit show, he was the husband from hell, and now the source who witnessed it is telling In Touch just how ugly things got. Tarek, claims the source, reduced Christina to tears on multiple occasions during tapings with his nasty behavior. “Tarek treated Christina like garbage,” says the source, adding that toward the end, “Christina wanted nothing to do with him.” Tarek, 35, and Christina, 33, carefully built an image of having a rock-solid relationship as their show became a hit, but the real story, In Touch has uncovered, is it was a shaky marriage that has now turned into an explosive divorce. Says the source: “It was like Christina tolerated Tarek until she just couldn’t take it any longer.”
Tarek humiliated Christina.
“When she said the wrong thing and they had to do a retake, he got pissed. He often made her cry,” says the source. “Tarek found humor in insulting his wife in repeated verbal attacks. Some of his bad behavior was even caught on camera [in footage that never aired]. Tarek called Christina a ‘whore’ on set many times. He used the word ‘whore’ casually to everyone.” The source adds that Tarek also threatened to perform a heinous violent act against Christina on more than one occasion. In Touch is choosing not to run his exact words because they are so offensive. “He said things like that all the time and then laughed about it,” the source says. But no one was amused, least of all Christina. Meanwhile, Christina and Tarek have hired separate publicists as their divorce war now moves to court. When asked about this and other examples of Tarek’s bad behavior, Christina’s rep told In Touch: “We will not be providing any comments.” “Once on set, Tarek went up to her and squeezed her breasts. He grabbed her butt all the time. She either did nothing or said, ‘Get away from me,’ and continued looking at her phone,” says the source. Much of it was caught on tape, but of course HGTV never aired it. Tarek also talked about “strippers and hos,” adds the source. “He bragged that he can get hos. In common conversation, he joked, ‘Oh, the hos love it,’ and often joked about hitting up the strip club after work on set, in front of Christina. Who wants to be married to that?”
It gets worse. Things hit a dramatic new low while taping season six in May.
“In the early days of filming Flip or Flop, Christina ignored Tarek and looked down at her phone when he tormented her. But when they started fighting more in 2016, she was no longer tolerating him and kept her distance,” says