Christina Haack and Ex-Husband Ant Anstead Reunite on The Flip Off After Nasty Divorce

In a sneak peek that aired at the end of Wednesday night’s new hour of the HGTV series, the designer revealed that she chose ex-husband, Ant Anstead, to be the guest judge for the next episode.

Christina is on the phone with her opponents in the house flipping showdown — her first husband Tarek El Moussa and his wife Heather — when she breaks the news.

“Have you picked the judge yet?” Heather asks, before Christina quips, “My second ex-husband… Anthony Anstead.”

“What?” Heathers asks. “Oh my God,” Tarek adds, as he throws his hands in the air.

The scene then cuts to a short preview of Anstead in his role as judge — and it looks like he’s being brutally honest with both teams.

Standing with Christina in the property she’s flipping, the British-born TV presenter tells her, “The small details in here are really driving me crazy.”

“Like?” Christina asks.

“The paint is missing in the corner there. That isn’t finished correctly,” he says as he points out issues with the home.

Later, at the El Moussas’ flip house, Anstead tells Heather he strongly disagrees with one of her design choices.

“At no point in human existence should anybody put wallpaper on the ceilings,” he quips.

The preview then ends on a cliffhanger as Anstead, who is currently starring in his own home renovation show in the U.K., prepares to deliver his verdict to both teams.

“I came in thinking this was about the design, the execution. But actually, this isn’t about houses at all,” Anstead says.

“What’s going on right now?” Tarek whispers to his wife, as Christina gives him some side eye before the scene trails off.

As for how Christina and Anstead’s unlikely friendship came to be, she told Us Weekly in a recent interview that it all happened after she filed to divorce her estranged husband, Josh Hall, last year.

“When Josh and I split up, I hadn’t really talked to Ant in years. The whole time I was with Josh, I would worry [thinking about how] Hudson’s sports [games] are coming up, we’re going to have to be on the field together, how’s Josh going to handle it?,” Christina, who shares 5-year-old son Hudson with Anstead, recalled.

“[After we broke up] I was dropping Hudson off at Ant’s house, and he gave me a big hug and was like, ‘I’m here for you and I’m so sorry you’re going through this.’ He said, ‘I feel like Josh is the source of the problem [and why] I couldn’t communicate.’ Now we’re back on track.”

Their unexpected reconciliation came after the pair, who wed in December 2018, went through a difficult divorce and custody battle. They announced they were separating in September 2020 and finalized their divorce in June 2021.

Christina’s even friendly with Ant’s girlfriend, Renée Zellweger, whom he’s been dating for the last four years, telling Us, “She’s great. It’s not like Heather and I, where we spend a lot of time together. It’s mostly just on the soccer field or at drop-off, but she’s super nice. She loves Hudson, and Hudson loves her. And she and Ant are happy.”

As for what Tarek and Heather think of Christina and Anstead’s reconciliation, they told People that it threw them off at first.

“All of a sudden they’re besties,” Tarek recalled of his reaction to seeing Anstead and Christina interact on set.

Watching Christina and Anstead’s reconciliation “unfold in front of our eyes” was a whirlwind experience for Tarek and Heather, with Heather telling People, “[Christina] started following [Ant] on Instagram and we were like, ‘What? What’s going on?’ It really was like that for us.”

“You see it transpire on TV and we’re so thrown off by the situation. I think we texted her, ‘Why are you following Ant? What’s going on?'” she added.

Fans first got a hint that Anstead might be joining the show when Christina joked about her second husband replacing her estranged third husband after his abrupt exit. Josh was initially set to be Christina’s teammate on the competition show before he filed for divorce in July.

It seems this big, blended family is doing just fine these days, with Christina, who previously said she’s staying single, now dating businessman Christopher Larocca.

See it all go down on The Flip Off, airing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV.