Tarek El Moussa admitted he went through “physical and emotional hell” in weeks after his tumultuous split from Christina Hall.
The former couple was married for seven years before calling it quits in 2016 following an altercation involving a firearm.
In a strange series of events, the HGTV star fled into a nature area with a pistol after a “blowup” fight with Hall.
The television personality called the cops over him in fear that Tarek might harm himself, a simple misunderstanding that kick-started the beginning of the end for their marriage.
The Flip or Flop alum opened up about his side of the story about the incident in his book, Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress — in Real Estate, Business and Life.
According to People, El Moussa explained that he had simply "went out to our backyard in Yorba Linda and hopped over the fence” to work out and scout the trails near the house.
He brought along a .38-caliber pistol as a precautionary measure from mountain lions and bobcats, which frequently wandered the neighboring Chino Hills State Park.
The real estate investor revealed he thought there was an emergency nearby after a helicopter appeared overhead, however, he quickly realized it was for him when a police office pointed a rifle at him.
“For the next several hours, I sat on a cooler on my driveway, handcuffed,” Tarek wrote in his book.
“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 added.
The reality star ended up going in a downward spiral due to defamation after the incident was made public, and receded the spotlight for months.
El Moussa eventually began healing when his friends intervened to pivot him back on track, he noted, until he had a “breakthrough moment” of meeting his current wife Heather at a Fourth of July party in 2019.