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Ant Anstead is trying to set the record straight with fans of his ex-wife, HGTV‘s Christina Hall, over their contentious custody dispute.
After Anstead shared a new social media post on October 13, 2022, that included photos of the three-year-old son they share together, Hall’s fans descended on the post to shame and blame the British-born TV host for his “hypocrisy,” alleging that he’d pressured his ex-wife to remove their son entirely from her social media accounts while not doing the same himself. Bewildered by people’s confusion over the situation, Anstead decided to reply to many commenters, urging them to “do some research” before throwing shade.
Angry Fans Flood Ant Anstead’s Post Featuring Photos of Hudson
On October 13, Anstead uploaded a new post on social media with photos of him, his dad, and three-year-old Hudson, whom he shares with ex-wife Hall, who rose to fame on HGTV’s “Flip or Flop” with her first husband, Tarek El Moussa.
In his Instagram caption, Anstead wrote that his parents were finally visiting California from England after more than two years of travel restrictions due to COVID. The car aficionado and TV personality added that having his parents in town would result in “Nanna & Gramps spoiling Hudzo, tons of mum’s home cooking and my laundry gets done for me,” adding a laughing emoji.
But the photos of Hudson — nicknamed Hudzo by Anstead — on his dad’s social media pages angered many followers who are firmly planted on Hall’s side of what’s become a nasty custody dispute.
Hall and Anstead separated in mid-2020 after a year and a half of marriage. They worked out a joint physical and legal custody agreement for Hudson, who was still an infant, and finalized their divorce in 2021. But what started out as a cordial arrangement has since devolved into a bitter fight in the courts — and on social media.
In April 2022, Antsead requested that a judge grant him full custody of Hudson. In his formal complaint, he shared safety concerns, said Hall only spent nine days a month with Hudson, and said he worried about Hudson appearing in her paid social media ads and TV shows without his approval.
Anstead’s emergency filing for full custody was denied, but the couple has since spent many hours in private, court-ordered mediation to work out their differences, much of which was productive. However, on September 27, Anstead filed new court documents obtained by Heavy, requesting the court’s intervention. Despite 12 hours of mediation earlier that month, he said they’d reached an impasse on “one unresolved issue” — enforcing strict boundaries around the use of Hudson’s name, image and likeness in promotions, ads and shows for which Hall is directly paid.
In the court documents, Anstead wrote, “Christina has already exploited Hudson in numerous paid promotions on social media. l fear she also has footage of him, to be used in one of her ‘reality’ TV shows, without my knowledge or consent, and continues to film him despite my objections.”
Anstead did acknowledge in the court filing that he sometimes features or tags businesses in his social media posts, but maintained he’s never featured Hudson in a paid promotion.
“While I will often ‘tag’ products and businesses on my social media (usually my business ‘Radford’) neither Hudson nor l am paid for the posts,” he wrote in the filing. “Our posts (and the vast majority of Christina’s as well) are organic ‘day in the life’ captures of normal family activities and Hudson is not Subjected to the stresses of film set chaos and the unnatural pressure to perform.”
Hall fired a blistering response with the courts the next day, in which she accused Anstead of craving attention and ignoring her request for more private mediation. She also claimed that she had stopped featuring Hudson in paid promotions back in April, despite having posted a mattress ad with photos of him on August 26, which remains in her Instagram feed.
As media stories mounted about the couple’s dispute, Hall took to social media several times to blast her ex-husband’s “manipulation tactics.” She also did a post calling out the “a**holes” in her life, and re-shared another Instagram user’s analysis that Hall was the victim of “post-separation abuse.”
Other than replying primarily with emojis to a couple of social media comments, Anstead has stayed mum on the situation — until now.
Ant Anstead Says Dealing With Online ‘Trolls’ is Small Price to Pay for ‘Protecting’ Hudson
GettyChristina Hall and Ant Anstead.
Amidst all the drama, Hall announced on Instagram on October 2 that she would no longer share photos or videos of Hudson on social media or on her TV shows. Many fans assumed she was forced to acquiesce to Anstead’s demands, but their court filings explicitly show that he was not concerned with her posting “organic” family photos or anecdotes about Hudson, only about keeping their son out of paid promotions and TV projects.
The confusion over this reached a boiling point when Anstead posted photos of Hudson on October 13. Hall’s fans flooded the comment section with questions and accusations, frequently calling Anstead a hypocrite for featuring Hudson when Hall “couldn’t.” Anstead replied to over a dozen comments, trying to set the record straight and share his perspective.
To one of the fans accusing him of hypocrisy, he wrote, “she can post as many organic pictures as she wants to. Please do your research on the facts and come back fully informed.”
Many people complained about the public nature of the custody dispute, slamming Anstead for not trying harder to work through the issue behind closed doors, despite the couple’s private mediation sessions.
In his responses, Anstead shared that he wrote privately to Hall about Hudson on April 21, “asking her to stop exploiting him for money and using him on reality TV.” He pointed out to fans that it had taken 25 weeks and two court filings for Hall to make a change.
“Finally she did. Bottom line Hudzo is now protected. And I would do it again,” he wrote, adding in a separate comment, “She could have agreed behind closed doors 25 weeks ago and no one would know. Certain People get mad when they get held accountable for something they definitely did”
There were also many supporters of Hall in the comment section who alleged Anstead had featured Hudson in his own sponsored posts, to which he replied, “I turn down every dollar I am offered for Hudzo. I choose to share organic moments on a platform created to do just that.”
He also addressed those who claimed any photos of Hudson on his social media feeds would ultimately benefit his own business, writing, “which business? Radford? no one buys a $500k supercar because hudzo was in a picture. I even kept him out the TV show (despite being asked many times)”
When someone accused Anstead, who has been in a relationship with actress Renée Zellwegger since mid-2021, of creating drama to punish Hall for being happy with her new husband, he wrote, “sorry you think that, it’s just not true. Hudzo childhood is not for sale. As a dad I will continue to step up for him”
Despite all the vitriol on his post, Anstead wrote repeatedly that he’s not bothered by it and finds it somewhat fascinating.
“It’s an interesting insight into human behavior that’s rolls right off me,” he wrote. “I can take a handful of trolls to get the outcome Hudzo needed.”
At the time of publication, Hall had not publicly addressed Anstead’s social media comments but did post a late-night Instagram Story on October 13 featuring a close-up photo of herself and her new husband Josh Hall with the words, “Getaway with my love.”
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