‘I Had to Cut the Public Off’: Nicole Curtis on Relationship With Fans

DIY Network / YouTube Nicole Curtis from the "Rehab Addict" pilot in 2010

HGTV star Nicole Curtis has been hosting renovation shows for over a decade now. The star’s three-episode spinoff series “Rehab Addict: Lake House Rescue” premieres on HGTV and discovery+ this Wednesday, November 3. Ahead of her premiere, the host sat down with a crew member on her show Jordan Garland for his podcast “Spooky Hourz Podcast” in a career retrospective that lasted two hours.

During the interview, Curtis opened up about her relationship with fans, and how she learned to put up boundaries between her personal and professional lives.

See the full interview below.

Nicole Curtis Regrets ‘Oversharing’ Early in Career

During the interview, host Jordan Garland asked Nicole Curtis what it was like to be authentic on camera. Curtis revealed that it can be a blessing and a curse.

“At first, I was so real that I overshared on accident,” Curtis shared, “My son [23-year-old Ethan] was 10 when we started the show and it was fun for him to be in the show and he wanted to be. Now I look back, and I’m like, ‘I put my child out there.'”

Curtis says her public image had grown so large at one time that her face was “plastered all over HGTV on a global scale, 24-7. I couldn’t go anywhere.” During this time, Curtis says, fans would approach her all the time and be very upset if she wouldn’t take time to take a photo with them and talk to them. Curtis also describes how the public knew too much about her life, and that somebody even approached them at an airport to ask Ethan how his braces were doing.

“I had to cut the public off at some point,” Curtis said, as fans would approach her in her yard, using identifiable information (which she makes a point not to include any longer) from her shows to find her home or job sites. This, Curtis said, was too far.

Curtis’s struggles with the limelight got so severe that in 2018 she left the public eye altogether. The host told People that the reason her show “Rehab Addict” went on hiatus at this time was due to her being burnt out. The host took time to be with her family and is returning now with hopes that this new “Lake House” venture will bring her more fun than stress.

Nicole Curtis Has Positive Fan Interactions

Despite feeling the need to step away from her show after a period of burnout, Nicole Curtis said in her “Spooky Hourz Podcast” interview that not all fan interactions are of the stressful variety and that she has made a lot of meaningful connections with fans over the years.

Curtis says that she is still in touch with some of her earliest fans, who started watching her shows when they first aired in 2010, and that a lot of them relate to her fears of alienating herself from fans, and have empowered her to set boundaries. Curtis also has a good share of heartwarming fan stories.

“My show played on repeat forever in hospitals,” Curtis said, “so you have no idea how many people write me and say ‘When I was going through chemo I just watched your show.'”

Curtis describes it as a massive honor to hear how her show was able to get people through these tough times, and that she always tries to make an effort to speak to people who she has touched in this way, as she knows how meaningful it can be for them.

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