Copyright Parade
Key Points A viewer's email led to Tarek El Moussa's thyroid and testicular cancer diagnoses. El Moussa insisted on continuing "Flip or Flop" despite battling two cancers simultaneously. He attributes recovery to lifestyle changes and has been cancer-free. HGTV personality Tarek El Moussa is opening up about his battle with thyroid and testicular cancer. TV Insider reported that El Moussa uploaded a brief Instagram video on November 9. In the clip, El Moussa, who was sitting before a microphone, shared that a fan encouraged him to get checked out by a doctor. According to El Moussa, a Flip or Flop viewer shared her concern about his neck in an email to HGTV during the production of Flip or Flop Season 2, which premiered in 2014. “A fan’s email saved my life,” said El Moussa in the video. “Going into Season 2 of Flip or Flop, I remember getting an eerie email from my production company saying they received an email from the network. The email said, ‘I’m a registered nurse from Texas. I noticed there’s a lump on Tarek’s neck. This is not a joke. He needs to get it checked out.'” After he received the email, he got a biopsy that “came back as atypical,” causing him to get an “exploratory surgery,” which confirmed a Stage III thyroid cancer diagnosis. The HGTV star then said that during one of his appointments for his thyroid cancer, an ultrasound showed he also “had testicular cancer.” He said that he was only 31 at the time of his diagnosis. In addition, El Moussa was already a father to his eldest child, Taylor, now 15, mothered by his ex-wife, Christina Haack. El Moussa said that despite having to battle “two different cancers,” he refused to quit Flip or Flop, which also starred Haack. According to El Moussa, HGTV was ready to end the show so he could focus on his health. “My response was, ‘The show’s not done. We’re gonna film my a*s rolling into the surgery. I’m gonna film until the end.’ It was really important to me that I didn’t quit, to prove to myself and my family that nothing would stop me from building what I was building,” said El Moussa, who also has a son, Brayden, 10, with Haack, per TV Insider. “I’m most proud to say that year that I had the surgeries and I fought the two cancers and I was in hospitals, I quadrupled the size of my house flipping business.” According to TV Insider, the 44-year-old’s cancers are in remission. Flip or Flop ended in 2022 after Season 10, per IMDb. Tarek El Moussa Said He Was ‘Ready to Fight’ When He Discovered He Had Cancer El Moussa discussed getting diagnosed with thyroid and testicular cancer in an October 2025 interview on the Thomas DeLauer Podcast. The HGTV personality said that once he found out that he had thyroid cancer, he “was ready to fight for [his] life,” Haack, their children, and his career. “I had two different cancers. And here’s the thing it wasn’t one cancer that spread, it was two totally different cancers,” said El Moussa in the October 2025 interview. He also said that he did believe he was “going to die.” “I thought I was rotten. And I thought I was rotten because, you know, I had spent 12 years chain smoking cigarettes, drinking a gallon of vodka a day, working 20 hours a day, trying to become an entrepreneur, trying to pay my bills, trying to build businesses. And I believe that I got sick because of the amount of pressure I put on myself to achieve,” said El Moussa, who has a 2-year-old son named Tristan with his wife, Heather Rae El Moussa, in the podcast interview.
