Chip Gaines has learned to put things in perspective after rocketing to superstardom on the popular show “Fixer Upper.”
Gaines, whose new book, “No Pain, No Gaines,” is out now, recalled the moment he realized celebrity had become too much for him to bear.
“It was a sad time when I realized that celebrity had absolutely overrun and taken over my life.”
The event occurred while Gaines was at a flea market with his wife Joanna and their family. Duke, their youngest boy at the time, walked off one day but was still about 10 yards ahead of Gaines. However, a crowd flooded the scene, eager to meet him in person.
“That had become a little bit regular for us because we had clearly gotten to that point in our careers where we were recognizable in public, but in that precise second, I sort of lost contact with Duke.”
“And so I was basically on my way to kind of gobble him up and get him back into a safe place, and at about the same time, I was surrounded by this group of people,” he explained, noting that fans were asking for pictures and wanting to know about his wife’s whereabouts, with one woman even squeezing his cheeks.
Gaines, who has five children with Joanna, claimed the incident changed him and forced him to reconsider how he wanted to live his life.
“It was a disturbing series of events only because I realized in that moment that I was incapable of communicating accurately that I was actually a desperate father trying to get my son into a safe place, but also kind of trying to resonate with these people and not be rude and all the things that we struggle with in a typical situation,” he said.
The Magnolia co-founder, 46, also said it was a wake-up call that fame had begun to take over his identity.
“But it was a bit of a shock to my system, and I would honestly say it drove me into somewhat of a spiral where who I was in this famous scenario really overshadowed who I was as a father and as a human,” he explained.
“And it pushed me to reconcile with whether or not all of this was worth it in some of those important life decisions that you have to make in these circumstances.”
Chip and Joanna Gaines are still cherished by fans, although from afar. After a phenomenally popular five-season run on HGTV that concluded in 2018, their show “Fixer Upper: Welcome Home” returned to the small screen in January on Discovery+.
