Tarek El Moussa Details Ant Anstead Relationship Before Christina Haack Reveals How They Buried the Hatchet

“Why don’t you just have Josh come and they can judge together?” a visibly annoyed Tarek quipped before explaining further in a confessional with wife Heather Rae El Moussa. “Pretty shortly after me and Christina split, she got in a relationship with Ant. I remember they had been dating for a few months and I was on my bed scrolling through social media when I saw a photo of them after they got married. I didn’t know anything about it.”

“I sent Ant a message asking him to, ‘Please treat my kids as your own.’ He never responded by the way. Wonder why they got divorced,” he continued.

Tarek and Heather both agreed that Christina was interacting with Ant “just to piss off” her estranged husband, Josh Hall, whom she filed to divorce last year.

“After Ant and Christina split, he changed,” Tarek continued. “He reached out to me to vent and over time we built a relationship. Honestly, I think our relationship with him has been way better over the years.”

As for why Christina really brought Ant on the judge, she admitted at first, it was to mess with Tarek, who she was facing off with in the competition series.

“I have an idea for the judge. You might think this is crazy but I chose my second ex-husband because I just love to mess with Tarek,” she explained of her proposal to Ant. “He’s going to be so thrown off when I say the judge is Ant. He is going to be so in his own head.”

Elaborating on her decision in a confessional, Christina added, “Ant is my second ex-husband and he’s the father to my third child, Hudson. If Ant was a judge — because Tarek is aware of some of the issues Ant and I have had throughout the years — it would be a little surprising and shocking.”

And it clearly was, with Christina joking her on-air reunion with Ant gave her PTSD.

“It is all coming back to me now. It is like PTSD,” Christina joked about sharing the screen with Ant again after they collaborated on Christina on the Coast. “He is charming, he has that going for him with the accent. But it is the over-explaining and him being a little bit bossy. It is quite the balance.”

She also didn’t think Ant took it “easy” on her with the judging process, despite granting the group a tie during the first part of this week’s challenge.

“I forgot how meticulous he was,” she told the cameras. “There’s a lot I want to say to him but I am holding back because I am worried if I say too much, he won’t pick me.”

Ant, meanwhile, whispered while Christina wasn’t looking that she “did a great job,” adding, “I am just giving her a little bit of grief.”

And though Ant was largely on Christina’s side, he still bonded with Tarek about how they were both “innocent victims” of hers. In response, Tarek suggested he should get together with Ant and Christina’s other ex, Hall, so they could “start a boy band.”

The process ultimately ended in Christina and Ant leaving in a better place than they’ve been in the last 5 years — a win for the estranged co-parents.

“Ultimately, I came into this endeavor thinking it was assessing and judging based on the design and the execution. But it dawned on me that it was so much more than that,” Ant explained. “Hudson is 5 now and in those years, it has been really, really difficult. That changed three months ago and the relationship that we have now is really important. It has been a transformation. As parents, it took us four-and-a-half years to get to that point, which is very shameful.”

He continued: “My parents raised me in a way where when you know who your family is, you stick with your family. Regardless of rules or performance, when I left the house this morning, Christina had already won.”

The Flip Off airs on HGTV Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.