Everything HGTV Exes Jen and Brandon Hatmaker Have Said About Their Divorce

HGTV couple Jen and Brandon Hatmaker’s 2020 split and subsequent divorce rocked both of their worlds.

Former Your Big Family Renovation host Jen stunned fans in July 2020 by announcing that her family was “in a moment with no handbook and without a single clue how to navigate this privately, much less publicly” as she split from Brandon after 26 years of marriage. (Brandon and Jen wed in 1993 and share five grown children: Beth, Ben, Gavin, Remy, and Caleb.)

“We are real people managing this in our real life in real time, and we are doing the absolute best we know how to do,” she wrote via Instagram at the time.

Jen later alleged in her 2025 memoir, Awake, that the end of her marriage was precipitated by her discovery that Brandon was having an affair. Brandon publicly apologized for his past actions in September 2025, before announcing that he would no longer “address the details” of his infidelity in order to put the matter behind him. (Brandon married his wife, Tina, in December 2023, while Jen has been in a long-term relationship with author and activist Tyler Merritt since her divorce.)

Who Is Jen Hatmaker? Meet the HGTV Star Who Was Cheated On

Keep scrolling for a rundown of what Jen and Brandon have said about their divorce.

Divorce Announcement

Jen announced her and Brandon’s intention to divorce via Instagram, admitting to her followers that the decision was “completely unexpected.”

“Brandon and I are getting divorced. Although the details are ours alone, this was completely unexpected, and I remain stunned as we speak. I am shocked, grief-stricken, and broken-hearted,” she wrote. “Hold us so dear to your hearts. We have felt your prayers these last few weeks. We have experienced your mercy. Thank you for being good to us. Know that we are deeply surrounded by love and have not been alone a single second in two months. Please help protect us and keep us safe as we try to heal and rebuild.”

Jen filed for divorce that August in Hays County, Texas. Neither specified a cause for their split at the time.

Moving On

Jen shared two photos of herself via Instagram — one snapped just after she’d split from Brandon and a second shot taken two years later — to show her followers how far she’d come.

“I took this picture … almost exactly two years ago on August 6th, one day before my birthday. No one knew I was getting divorced yet, only that something had gone terribly wrong and I’d been off socials and we were in a catastrophic crisis,” she wrote of the first photo.

Jen admitted she could “hardly look” at the picture from 2020 without recalling the trauma and pain of her divorce.

“I was so, so, so sad. I have never been that sad before or since,” she admitted. “My face holds all the sorrow and shock and loss and grief I never wanted. I was at the bottom of the ocean.”

The former HGTV host described the then-current photo as proof that “everything [she] wrote [in her split announcement] turned out to be true.”

“Whatever we’ve built into our lives is what shows up when everything collapses. Not one good deposit is wasted; not any of the hope, the love, the relationships, the faith, the honor. Those keep. They accrue. They metastasize,” she wrote. “Hang on to all the good things you have the audacity to still fight for, still believe in. Keep building. Keep choosing what is good and right and true and lovely.”

The reality TV star went on, “Without even meaning to, you will have built a gorgeous, strong, sturdy house that will shelter you during whatever raging storm comes. And when it recedes, you might stand under the very same tree two years later, smile from the depths of your little mended heart … and mean it.”

Rebuilding Life

While promoting her podcast “For the Love” on the Tamron Hall Show, Jen opened up about her divorce more than ever before. She admitted to host Tamron Hall that she worried her life was ruined after splitting from Brandon.

“I was just at the bottom of the ocean. So bleak, so dark,” she acknowledged. “I remember thinking at that time, ‘My life is ruined, I’ll never be happy again.’ I thought it was true.”

Jen clarified, “I just could not envision a life other than the one I had built. I had been married for 26 years. We had five kids.”

Despite initially feeling she was “lost in the abyss,” Jen said she eventually realized it was “possible” to forge a fulfilling life outside of her marriage.

“What I would say is [the process] is slow. It’s not overnight, there’s not a formula,” she told viewers. “I wanted [a formula] … it’s one day at a time. One little measure at a time.”

Affair Allegation

Jen went public with allegations of Brandon’s infidelity in her memoir, Awake. She told The New York Post that she overheard her husband whispering at 2 a.m. in July 2020 and realized that he must be having an affair.

“To some degree, I almost disassociated,” she recalled. “It was so outside the realm of what I would have ever considered a possibility for our life, our marriage, our story.”

After finding an alleged “trail of betrayal” on Brandon’s computer, Jen worried she was facing “financial chaos” because her husband allegedly spent their money on “expensive and lavish gifts” for a girlfriend.

“It was so shocking and stunning, and I almost could not process it. I couldn’t even cry. I did not know if I was ever going to be happy again,” she remembered. “I thought that we were deeply working to repair [with marriage counseling]. We had kind of reconnected sexually … And so there, at the very bitter end, I thought that we were trying, but we actually weren’t.”

The author went on to say, “There were a lot of unaccounted absences, and the phone was never ever, ever, ever out of his hand or sight. All the warning signs were there, but I did not want to face those.”

Brandon’s Response

Brandon broke his silence on the infidelity via his blog, revealing that he’d initially decided “not to stand up” for himself “out of fear of it coming across as making excuses.”

“With the release of Jen’s new book, it has stirred the pot quite a bit. Many of you are new to our story and hear the promotion, read the articles, and watch the interviews,” he wrote. “I’ve noticed a handful of statements that have been thrown out there that tell only a piece of the story. Without context, there have been many things said that leave it up to the reader or listener to decide how to fill in the blanks.”

The Austin New Church founder confessed there were “no excuses” for having an affair, though he suggested his divorce was more complicated than Jen made it seem.

“I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to have an affair. I didn’t fall out of love overnight,” he insisted. “Our love was coming to a slow and painful ending. And I privately mourned the death of our marriage years before our divorce.“

He continued, “Let me be clear about something, I understand what it means to sit in the consequences of my actions. In no way do my circumstances excuse my actions. The purpose of this article is not to make excuses or rationalize anything, The purpose is to simply add context to a handful of areas where the vast majority, and nearly every new follower, is missing.”

Brandon clarified that he felt his ex-wife had “every right to share her piece of the story” and he didn’t “blame her” for going public.

“I believe there are some truths left out that paint a false narrative or unnecessarily exaggerates areas that are truly important to me,” Brandon concluded. “I’m not saying what she wrote is untrue. I’m saying that what’s left unsaid isn’t her responsibility to tell. The only one who can do that, is me.”

Remarriage Timeline

On his blog, Brandon laid out the alleged timeline of his relationship with current wife Tina in order to refute social media rumors that she was his “affair partner.”

“I’ve said this before, but I’ll reiterate it here. It’s been assumed by some that Tina, my wife, was my affair partner. She was not,” he wrote via Substack. “In no way was Tina involved or a part of my divorce in 2020. Jen verifies this in her book. To be clear, Tina and I had never met until after the divorce was filed. This was also after Jen told me that for her ‘there was no path back to reconnection.’”

The Your Big Family Renovation host specified that he “became exclusive” with Tina only after he’d finalized his divorce from Jen.

“Jen and I intentionally delayed finalizing the divorce for mutually agreed-upon reasons. None of those reasons had anything to do with giving the marriage time to reconcile. It was at Jen’s request to delay the divorce and I agreed,” he explained. “For those who read or believe the narrative that I remarried too quickly… The fact is that Tina and I got engaged two years later in July of 2022 and married the following December. And I’ll say it again: Tina may have saved my life. Not figuratively, but literally.”

‘Sexual Shame’

Jen discussed her evangelical upbringing on the “Jamie Kern Lima Show” podcast, revealing that she and Brandon both brought some “sexual shame” into their marriage. The former evangelical Christian described attending a “sex education” class at church as a teenager where she and other girls were warned that their sexuality was a “pure” and “pristine” gift to be given only to their husbands.

“That was the first time in my life I had been told by a spiritual authority that I was a real problem, that my body was a problem, that I was in charge of not just my own sexual purity, but the boys and any sexual deviance that came into play, if it was mine, it was my fault, and if it was theirs, it was my fault, and that seared into my psyche. I’m 50 years old. I’m still talking about it,” she remembered.

Jen quipped that she and Brandon “sullied the story” prior to tying the knot, insinuating that they had not saved themselves for their wedding night.

“We already walked into our relationship full of guilt, full of shame, full of secrets, because that’s not something we were allowed to talk about or to be honest about,” she said. “And so you just bury that internally, and it’s so corrosive.”

Closing the Book

In a follow-up blog, Brandon explained that he’d responded to “the speculation and misinformation” about his divorce because he thought it would be “both hopeful and helpful.”

“I also know this: living in the past doesn’t heal anyone,” he continued. “From this point forward, I won’t be addressing the details of those events any longer. I’ve said what needed to be said, and now it’s time to close that chapter.”

Brandon thanked those who’d shown his family “empathy and understanding” in the light of his ex-wife’s affair accusations.

“Your support means more than you know,” he wrote. “The future of this space is bright, and I’m looking forward to talking about the things that bring life, hope, and healing.”