HGTV’s Nicole Curtis Gets Candid About ‘Rehab Addict’ Return, Drama With Her Ex & Personal Struggles

They say good things come to those who wait, and that’s about to pay off for fans of Nicole Curtis, who is back on HGTV for Rehab Addict. The popular renovation show initially ran for eight seasons through 2018. Since then, the popular personality has given network viewers two spinoffs.

Now, Curtis returns with Rehab Addict Season 9, which premieres on HGTV on June 24. The next installment sees the mother of two (her kids are 27-year-old Ethan and 10-year-old Harper) split time between her hometown of Detroit and Wyoming, where she’ll take on two historic homes that need some major DIY TLC.  For Curtis, restoring these older properties has been a calling. These two specific places put that passion to the test. She bought the 1890s house in Wyoming online without even setting foot in it beforehand, which brought its challenges. The Detroit home proved to be one of the dirtiest ever.

Here, Curtis gets candid about tackling these projects, her TV absence, and her regrets about working with her ex in the new season of the show.

How did this season come about, and what makes it different? 

Nicole Curtis: When we first started the show in 2010, I just wanted to show people that old houses were cool, and you needed to keep them standing. At the time when I started the show the glass tile, and mosaic backsplashes were all the rage. I would walk into an old house and go, “that does not go!” That was really the idea with the show, just to show I was this young mom and was taking these houses nobody wanted and keeping them historic. I was doing all the work myself and selling them. Throughout the years, Rehab Addict has evolved because I’m no longer 34 years old. I’m turning 49. I went from a struggling mom to being like, “I do okay” now. I’m still passionate about old houses. I’ve been watching a lot of those old shows because what I really wanted to produce and bring back for this season was that Rehab Addict original feel. I would ask people what drew them to our show in the first place and just really honed in on that. 

It was the fact that I’m real. I make mistakes. I really just have this opinion about everything. Old houses is my thing. I want to keep it standing and I want to educate you. I’m not showing anyone how to refinish a clawfoot tub these days. There are 110 episodes of that. If you need to know, go back to Seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4. I’m going to gloss over that these days and show you something different. It’s just getting back to that thing, because we’re in this economy again, where people have excess cash, and they are gutting their old homes and making these trendy kitchens that they are not going to want in nine years or nine minutes sometimes. Really just honing in on that. Give the old house a chance. I promise you’ll love it. If not, move to a new loft and sell it. 

HGTV

You are essentially un-flipping a flip in Wyoming. Tell me about how that project came about. 

Wyoming is very desolate. I’ve been to Wyoming twice in my life, but I bought this house sight unseen, and I just had this fixation on it. I’ve been watching this little town. I’ve talked to people from that area, and  they were like, “You don’t want to be in Wyoming.” I just bought a house, and it was funny because I didn’t think about things like the nearest airport a couple hours away, or the nearest big box store to buy supplies a couple hours away. Contractors? Don’t have any. It was really one of those moments. I’ve always been one of those spontaneous people. You can buy houses online, and that’s what I did. 

Before I knew it, I was the owner of it. I’d never seen it, flew out there, and then I was like, “Wow, okay.” The reason I wanted that particular house was the flipper had done the house so wrong. When you look at the listings online and see the year built, it says 1890. It was like, “Get out. No way. It had no original features. I thought, “Someone is going to buy this and keep those gray plastic floors.” I thought this looked small enough that maybe in a weekend we could rip carpeting out and paint. It’s not in my nature. It turned into a big monster project of mine with a big attic suite, and a huge bathroom. I went crazy with it. I shame this a lot on the show because it is wrong what they did to this house. I don’t know if they’ll see it. Probably, but they are going to hear about it and learn a lesson. Go flip a 1988. 

 

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Speaking about having trouble finding a contractor for that project, we see your ex, Ryan Sawtelle, helping out with this one. How was it working with him? 

That is the worst idea I ever came up with. I’m just going to throw it out there. I’m always an optimist. These are my first episodes underneath my own name and under my production company. These episodes were in development for a long time, and they weren’t even HGTV shows. The original version of this whole series was just of un-flipping this house and there was more of that with us. When you see us on camera, I mean if you’ve ever worked on a project with somebody you had a relationship with, you get it. There’s just those moments where it’s like, “dude, I can’t take this one more second.” It all worked out. We’re always friendly, but I always say there is a reason we’re not together. I think that is apparent to anyone. I finally had to sound the alarms, and we brought in everyone from Detroit. 

I brought on the OGs from all my shows and we busted this thing out. I have a very small crew, and I’m part of the crew. I’m the worker bee. When I say something like the lawn needs to get done, I mean I’m mowing the yard at the crack house in Detroit last night. When I say we have a small crew and we have five people, I’m one of those five. There is no Nicole Curtis trailer outside with air conditioning and craft services. There is a porta-potty. In Wyoming, it was 115 degrees with no water or air conditioning. There was sand whipping across our faces. There are definitely some heated moments. Did we show that on TV? No. I would never. We kiss and make up, except with my ex. There is no kissing and making up there. But with all of us, we’ve all worked together for years. When you work in a hot house that smells like human urine and dog urine, and it’s 111 degrees, and you’re insulating, you’re not at your best. I’ll say that. Somebody always has to break the ice. My guys are always roasting me. Imagine if you had a bunch of brothers and sisters and all working on a project together. That is how it went. 

What can you say about what you faced in Detroit? 

I think the Detroit house was a crack house. It was a bona fide crack house with squatters in it. I didn’t need an an arthouse crew to come make it look like hell for TV. It was the worst, nastiest thing you’ve seen in your entire life. I deal with a lot of stuff. Dealing with other people’s garbage and people’s waste is on another level. I had to open an old refrigerator, and you don’t open old refrigerators in a crack house. That smell is still up my nose. I’ve never been so sick in my life. We had fuzzy mold everywhere, but we mediated all the mold, lead and asbestos and saw what was left intact and put it back together. This Detroit one is one for the records. It was nasty. 

We’ve seen some hiatuses in between your TV projects. Were you worried at all about not having these opportunities with so much time passing by? 

I’ll tell you this. I’m not worried about not having my opportunities on television. I love producing television. I think I’ve become a pretty darn good television producer. I will think, “Are people going to watch this?” The most important thing for me is that people watch our show, they love old houses and see that if Nicole Curtis did that, we can do that. When I see a developer with millions of dollars in funding and huge crews saying, “We can’t save that old building. It’s too far gone.” I want  to say, “Oh yeah, I watched Nicole save a building, and she could do it.” That’s always what we want to bring home. That the impossible is possible. You just have to ask the right people. Never hire someone who doesn’t love old houses to be a contractor. They’ll tell you to rip it out, gut it and take the easy way out. I always want to educate people first. Old houses are just amazing. They are built and designed better, why wouldn’t you love an old house? 

HGTV

Being around for so long, have there been any other HGTV personalities you’ve leaned on for support if you’re going through a hard time? 

I love everyone on there. I confess that I don’t watch HGTV. I’ll say this, and all of my network executives will say, “Nicole!” We don’t have TVs in our houses. I’m an outdoor person. I don’t know if you can tell, as I’m always a nice shade of brown leather couch. I was trying to figure this out. I think I’m the oldest show on HGTV right now. I was before the [Property Brothers] and Tarek [El Moussa] and Christina [Haack] because they are much younger than me. We’re 2009,2010. The [Property Brothers] are always shooting a commercial in Los Angeles. I swear to goodness. I’ll run into them somewhere. They are all great. I know when someone on an HGTV show has done something wrong to an old house because our DMs are filled. I say, “Listen, I’m not the teacher. You can’t tell on anybody. I’m not in charge of them.”

I’m not in that arena because I have a real construction company. When we aren’t shooting the show, I’m on site and working on projects. I always say our TV show is fourth down on the list. My children are first, volunteering at school and doing what my children need, and then our real business. We have a picture, though, of the brothers with my youngest, who was so young back then. We all went to dinner or something. We’ve been together in the HGTV world for many years. We just lost one of our great top people, Loren Ruch, which was heartbreaking. We also lost Ananda Lewis in the same week. I worked with Ananda in Atlanta, and she was a sweetheart. It’s all connected. We might not work on the same sets, but we know of each other and know what’s going on. It is a small world, and you want the best for everyone. 

What is the future of the show? 

We have four [episodes] coming out. I got four or five in the can that can come out if we want to keep doing this. We have a large monster project in Detroit that I have been secretly waiting to bring out to the public. I’m always doing old houses. We’re always filming them, if we’re doing a show or not. And thank goodness, because we didn’t have a show set up for this Wyoming house, I just decided to film it, and we did. 

How is it juggling and balancing work and family in your life right now? 

There is never any balance. It’s so hard. I say 97 times a day that I don’t want to be the man. Why do I have to be the man all the time? My children come first. People ask why I only have four episodes coming out when I used to have 25. Yeah, I needed the money, had a child at home, and wasn’t financially secure. We worked all the time. My older son would go to appearances with me and at job sites all the time. That’s not how it is anymore. I don’t need to make more money. I make a living, but I don’t need to live way up here and take away family time. My kids are the most precious thing in my entire life. That’s what I live for. I work around when I can. Unfortunately, I’ve had some very traumatic personal issues and I don’t have my children next to me all the time, but that wasn’t of my choosing. My work is my escape, but if I had the traditional white picket fence at home thing, I’m sorry, I love my old houses, but I wouldn’t be out here as much working  and doing these shows. I’d be home. 

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I volunteer at school every single day. I love it. I live for it. Everybody knows that from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every day, Nicole is not at meetings. She is at school. The kids finally figured out that I have a TV show. They just think it’s the coolest thing. I was blasting on the TV screen in the lobby at my son’s office today, and he said, “Mom, your voice is carrying through our building right now.” He kids with me a lot, but that’s our thing. Our family is very strong. My kids are everything. I’m so thankful viewers over the years, because I get to be this hybrid stay-at-home mom because of their support. I’ve taken this TV money, invested in my real estate, so that we can live. I’m very fortunate. I don’t have to be at a 9-to-5 job every day, and that’s important to me. I’m very lucky. Not all moms can do that. I’m blessed to to be able to do that, and I couldn’t have done it without the fans. When we’re coming back, I get very emotional about it because I know who made me. I didn’t make this show great. The people that watch us and tune-in did. The people that have been hanging on for three years are the people that made this show such a success. 

Rehab Addict Season 9 premiere, June 24, 9/8c, HGTV