Joanna Gaines is opening up about her shocking decision to walk away from “Fixer Upper” at the height of its fame.
Nearly a decade after calling it quits on their beloved HGTV series, the renovation pro spills on what led to her and husband Chip Gaines’ decision.
Walking Away
Joanna sat down with longtime friend Hoda Kotb to share a life update and discuss all things “joy.”
During the Monday, September 7, episode of Kotb’s “Joy 101,” the “Today” show star explained, “I think what you do and what you have done and what I do and I have done is we sprint until we tip over and then we say, ‘Oh my god, what is happening here?'”
She went on to discuss Joanna’s decision to walk away despite her agents and everyone in her life calling her “crazy.”
“I know you can relate to this. It’s like when you start realizing you’re living on a thing that’s now the intentionality is gone and you’re just showing up,” Joanna said. “That’s not why we want to like that’s not that doesn’t feel fulfilling. It actually feels as though we’re part of this machine that is like what’s the life here? And I would say that was our first pause of like we’re doing all this and and seeing great reward like this is wonderful but also never at the expense of like our like livelihood, our happiness, our souls.”
She added, “And so stopping in that moment was basically us saying it’s nothing is worth what’s worth it is like are we healthy? Are we good? Is our family good? That’s the most important thing. So that was really a very pivotal moment for us.”
When asked how she knew it was the time to walk away, Joanna simply said, “Dread.”
“When you start dreading your days, I don’t want to do that. You start like wishing for a stomach bug or maybe back surgery this year would be great. Like how do I force myself?” she laughed. “But also just the, where your soul just feels weary…I can from a physical standpoint I can work till I I can just I can push past the weariness the physical but then you get to that layer of like the soul weariness and that’s dangerous.”
Saying Goodbye
Chip and Joanna burst onto the scene when their hit HGTV series premiered in 2013. At the time, the couple shared four young children and were balancing the show, their growing family, and their newfound fame.
The Waco, Texas, based couple shocked the world when they announced they were walking away in 2017.
“While we are confident that this is the right choice for us, it has for sure not been an easy one to come to terms with,” the couple shared in a blog post at the time. “Our family has grown up alongside yours, and we have felt you rooting us on from the other side of the screen. How bittersweet to say goodbye to the very thing that introduced us all in the first place.”
In the years since, the couple — who welcomed their fifth child, son Crew, in 2018 — have continued to grow their empire, including Magnolia Network, The Silos at Magnolia, her Hearth & Hand collection with Target, and various “Fixer Upper” spinoff series.
