HGTV’s Christina Hall Agrees to New Custody Arrangement

Ant Anstead, Christina Hall

Heavy/Getty Ant Anstead and Christina Hall signed a new agreement in their custody arrangement in November 2022

After a long and contentious custody battle, HGTV‘s Christina Hall and her second husband, TV personality Ant Anstead, have agreed to and signed final details of a custody arrangement for their three-year-old son, Hudson, including where and when he’ll spend holidays. According to court documents obtained by Heavy, the couple has agreed to continue their 50/50 custody arrangement, and because of the details they’ve hashed out through mediation, they will no longer need to go to trial in March 2023. Here are the details…


Christina Hall & Ant Anstead Agree to New Holiday Schedule

Christina Hall, Ant Anstead

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Hall and Anstead, who were married from 2018 to 2021, signed a modified custody agreement on November 17, 2022, which a judge signed off on and filed in the Superior Court of California in Orange County the following day, establishing that the former couple will “continue to have joint legal and joint physical custody” of Hudson, as was stipulated in their original custody agreement in June 2021.

The new six-page document outlines some changes to their holiday schedule, allowing for Hall to have Hudson on both Thanksgiving and Christmas during even-numbered years, while Anstead will have him for both on odd-numbered years. The agreement was signed just before Thanksgiving 2022, so Hudson was part of Hall’s intimate family gathering at her Tennessee home while Anstead spent the holiday in Sedona with his girlfriend, actress Renee Zellwegger.

Per the agreement, Hall will also have Hudson from Dec. 23 through Christmas Day. The same will go for Anstead on odd-numbered years. Both parents are allowed to take a full week of vacation with Hudson during the holiday break each year, provided they give one another written notice of their plans by December 1 of that year.

If their plans are conflicting or overlap, the parent who has custody on Christmas that year gets priority. That arrangement is based on the assumption that Hudson will have a three-week break from school; if it’s reduced to two weeks off, they’ve agreed that “the parties shall meet and confer to establish an alternative custody schedule.”

Their new agreement also outlines plans for several additional holidays. Hudson will spend Easter Sunday with his dad on even-numbered years, and with his mom on odd-numbered years.

If there’s no conflict with either parent’s requested summer vacation plans, Hudson will spend the Fourth of July with Hall during even-numbered years and Anstead on odd-numbered years, from 9 am on July 4 to 10 am the following day. And, finally, for Halloween, Hudson will be with Anstead on even-numbered years and Hall on odd-numbered years, from 9 am on October 31 to 10 am the following day.

The couple also agreed that Hudson will be “immediately enrolled” at a preschool in Laguna Beach, California, “without prejudice to a kindergarten selection.” If they can’t come to an agreement on where Hudson should attend kindergarten, both Hall and Anstead have agreed they’ll “attend further mediation.”


Christina Hall Has Already Shaded Anstead on Social Media Since Signing Custody Agreement

Christina Hall

HGTVAs seen on HGTV’s Christina in the Country, host Christina Haack poses for a portrait at the Hodges.

Three days after the new agreement was filed in court, Hall seemed to shade Anstead on social media in a photo taken at the Sweet Haven ice cream parlor in Tennessee. In the snapshot, her daughter Taylor, 12, and son Brayden, 7, whom she shares with first husband and fellow HGTV personality Tarek El Moussa, were seen smiling with their cousin — the niece of Hall’s third and current husband, Josh Hall.

“Must stop at our fave [ice cream cone emoji] spot @sweethaven_tn,” she wrote. Hall referenced her youngest son, adding, “Hudson is here too but can’t be ‘here.’”

In April 2022, Antsead had requested that a judge grant him full custody of Hudson, saying that Hall only spent nine days a month with Hudson, and that he worried about their young son 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 spent many hours in private, court-ordered mediation to work out their differences.

However, on September 27, Anstead filed new court documents obtained by Heavy, requesting the court’s intervention again. 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 his filing, 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. Hall blasted Anstead over his complaints, but in October, she announced on Instagram that she will no longer feature Hudson on social media or in her shows. She insisted this was not court-ordered, but her own decision.

However, implying again in her November 21 post that she “can’t” feature Hudson confused fans, who have been very vocal on both Hall and Anstead’s social media posts about where they stand on the issue.

On November 28, she also posted a family photo of her and Josh with the three kids, with Hudson’s face covered by an emoji. When fans flooded her comments with questions, Hall issued a statement via her Instagram Stories, saying it was the last time she was going to discuss the issue.

“This has nothing to do with ads, people need to wrap their heads around the fact that none of this actually has to do with advertisements,” she wrote. “This is about CONTROL. There are many things that I was no longer ok with. Instagram was being used as a tool against me to judge the kind of mom I was and I was sick of it. Every photo I posted of Hudson on my story or main page was being screen shot and picked apart.”

Without naming Anstead, she finished her statement, attempting to call his fans “know-it-alls.” She wrote, “Now the ‘now it alls’ can go back to his page please. Thank you.”

The new custody agreement states that all of the concerns brought forward by Anstead in April have been resolved, and therefore the two won’t have to go to trial, as previously planned, in March 2023.