One couple is just about the cutest twosome you ever saw and the other couple are exes whose ups and downs have been tabloid fodder for years.
Both couples are HGTV stars, and one of them -- the latter -- this week began a competition in the profession where they made their names: house flipping.
The other couple, Ben and Erin Napier of Laurel, Mississippi, this week reached a multiyear agreement with HGTV that will keep them and their uber-popular renovation show, “Home Town,” at the home-and-lifestyle channel for an unspecified number of years to come.
The Napiers are positioned as loving partners who do good works for Laurel with their homey restorations of the town’s charming old homes.
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They could not be more different than the other couple, southern California exes Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack, who have been house-flipping stars on HGTV since 2013.
Their new competition show, which premiered Wednesday night, is being hyped by HGTV as “a throwdown competition to see which ex can find, buy, renovate and flip a house for the biggest financial gain,” says HGTV.
The rewards in the show, titled “The Flip Off,” are “ultimate bragging rights” and a first-class vacation paid for by the loser, HGTV says.
The show has the potential to do very well, given the very public and complicated family and marriage history of Tarek and Christina. In addition, HGTV has been promoting “The Flip Off” on-air with great frequency.
The only doubt about that prediction is that this kind of renovation-competition show combining the professional and the personal is a departure for HGTV, whose shows -- both competition and non-competition -- have been characterized by sunny attitudes without bitterness on the part of all participants.
The Napiers, for example, are seen in every episode of “Home Town” bringing happiness everywhere they go.
In the shows, they collaborate closely with each other on construction and design decisions. In other scenes, they lovingly face the cameras to reveal aspects of their work and home lives to the apparent delight of millions.
By contrast, Tarek and Christina worked together for years until separating in 2016 and divorcing in 2018.
Their original show, “Flip Or Flop,” which made them famous and ignited a craze for house flipping on HGTV and the world, was rendered unsustainable and they each had a series of shows of their own.
Since the divorce, Tarek remarried. His new wife, Heather Rae El Moussa, is a former Playboy playmate who now works with him in his house-flipping ventures.
Christina has since married twice, most recently to Joshua Hall, a realtor, who is seen at the outset of “The Flip Off.”
Adding spice to “The Flip Off,” Heather is Tarek’s partner on the show, going up against first wife Christina.
Not lost on anyone who has followed the careers and lives of Christina and Tarek is the keen resemblance of lookalikes Christina and Heather that is observable in the above photo -- Christina, left, and Tarek and Heather, right.
Most intriguingly, midway into the premiere episode of “The Flip Off,” Christina revealed that she and husband Josh have separated, which helps to explain why he is nowhere to be seen in the publicity photo.
The winner in this flipping competition will be decided by a panel of judges that seem chosen, at least in part, for their strong personalities and emotional links to Christina and Tarek.
They include both of their mothers, Laurie Haack and Dominique El Moussa; Christine’s second husband and now ex, Ant Anstead, a TV car mechanic and car builder; and a former “Flip Or Flop” contractor, Jeff Lawrence.
The rest of the judges include three from outside the HGTV family -- two from Bravo, house-flipping star Jeff Lewis and Heather Dubrow of “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” and Amanza Smith of “Selling Sunset” on Netflix.
Rounding out the panel is Izzy Batress, one-time “Flip Or Flop” contractor whose participation on “The Flip Off” is well-timed to promote his new show on HGTV, “Izzy Does It,” premiering February 5.