Kamohai and Tristyn Kalama are speaking out about the controversial “Renovation Aloha” episode involving the discovery of human remains. The HGTV stars detailed how they followed the proper protocol to protect the property.
HGTV Pulled & Re-Edited ‘Renovation Aloha’ Episode: ‘We Apologize … ‘
During season 3, episode 3 of “Renovation Aloha,” Kamohai and Tristyn discover human remains at a Hawai’i property. In a since-deleted social media clip, Kamohai shines a flashlight and notes, “Holy crap. There’s bones back here.”
The state claims that the show didn’t get permission to film the remains, a practice that’s deemed disrespectful to the islands’ indigenous ancestors.
According to Honolulu Civic Beat, the Hawai’i Attorney General’s Office won a restraining order from a state judge to have the content taken down.
The episode aired, but HGTV later removed the episode and re-edited it. The network also issued a statement.
“We take the concerns raised by the Native Hawaiian community very seriously and are committed to ensuring our programming is respectful and appropriate,” a statement from Lynne Davis Adeyemi, vice president of communications for Warner Bros. Discovery, read.
“We apologize to anyone who found any part of the episode offensive, as that was not HGTV’s intention,” the statement added.
Kamohai & Tristyn Kalama Address Controversial ‘Renovation Aloha’ Episode
In an April 16 Instagram Live video, Kamohai and Tristyn explained that they followed the proper steps upon making the discovery. They jumped into the details of how things unfolded during filming and what they found in a lava tube.
“The careful consideration of going through this episode — for us, nothing means more to us than our family, our culture, and our history and heritage,” Kamohai said.
“And the land that we are honored to call home,” he said, explaining they have “the utmost respect for all of it. It all means so much to us.”
He also shared that there’s a massive amount of development happening on the big island, noting that a lot of developers “aren’t doing it the same way that we chose to.”
They shared the steps they took to handle the situation — notifying the police “immediately,” as well as contacting Kamohai’s father. “He knows exactly what to do in those situations,” he explained.
“The police archeologists said just leave the bones, they didn’t need to do anything further at that time,” Tristyn shared.
Kamohai noted, “We were put in touch with our kūpuna that know the proper protocol for a situation like that.”
“This was something we would never build on,” he explained. “Now it was about, what is the proper cultural protocol?”
Kamohai and Tristyn were given guidance to “protect in place.”
“That is exactly what we did,” Tristyn said, explaining that they put a fence up to protect the property.
“That property will remain that way in perpetuity which will ensure that no one ever gets to build on that site and it will remain that way forever. For us, that was most important,” Kamohai said.
“How we chose to handle it was to not build on that lot,” Tristyn added.
Fans lit up the comments section with words of support. “Your kindness, authenticity, dedication to respect and honor your culture and community is 💯,” one fan wrote.
