Heavy/Discovery+/HGTV HGTV's mother-daughter duo Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine
Fans of the long-running HGTV series “Good Bones” were stunned to learn that there’s so much tension between its stars — mother-daughter renovation duo Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine — that the show will end after its eighth season, which premiered on August 15, 2023.
During her “Mina AF” podcast on August 28, Starsiak Hawk revealed that she and her mom are “not on good terms” and that she was struggling to decide whether to invite Laine and other family members to her five-year-old son’s birthday party.
In the end, Starsiak Hawk didn’t include her mom or brothers in the celebration, she told People in an interview published on September 7, and opened up about the ongoing tension with her family, including a “knockdown, drag-out” fight she and her mom had while filming the season premiere.
Here’s what you need to know:
Mina Starsiak Hawk: Show Gives Illusion of Best Friends
Starsiak Hawk told People that filming the eighth and final season was especially difficult for her and that viewers don’t get the full look at everything that goes on behind the scenes.
“There’s a lot more construction people don’t see. There’s a lot more contractor issues people don’t see. There’s interpersonal family dynamics that people don’t see,” she shared. “There were definitely some challenging (moments) because my mom and I were in some of the most challenging places I felt we’ve been.”
In fact, while filming the season premiere, they had “a knockdown drag-out (fight) during demo,” she told the magazine. HGTV didn’t show that in the episode, though, because such a scene wouldn’t exactly be the family-friendly kind of content viewers expect, she said.
“I was like, ‘I wonder if anyone’s going to be able to tell,'” Starsiak Hawk recalled. “And of course, you can’t because that’s the idea. People…that’s not why they’re tuning in to watch ‘Good Bones.’ That’s not what they want.”
Starsiak Hawk said she understands why revealing that she and her mom are “not in the greatest place” left some many stunned.
“From what people know from the show, my mom and I are thick as thieves, best friends, and because they just don’t know anything else, they assume that’s how it’s always been,” she said.
But this rift is actually nothing new, she told People, explaining that she’s had a difficult relationship with her mom for most of her life.
Mina Starsiak Hawk Says Running a Business & Starring on TV With Her Mom Was Too Much
HGTVMina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine
Starsiak Hawk and Laine were in a good place in 2007 when they opened the Indianapolis-based renovation company Two Chicks and a Hammer. In fact, they had a good relationship, she told People, from the time she graduated from college until the opening of their business. But building a company and becoming TV stars was too much pressure, she said, in addition to other issues that viewers never saw play out on-screen.
“It was maybe eight years of my now 39 years that we were extremely close,” she said in the interview, adding that they’ve had “a very rocky relationship since I have memories” and that Laine “never really played the mom role.”
In 2021, Starsiak Hawk told The List, “We always have these ups and downs. That’s how mom and I have been, honestly, since I was like 6. We didn’t talk for a year — like, my first year of college.”
She told People that adding a TV show into the mix made their already-difficult dynamics even harder.
“It’s very challenging when you aren’t working from a super stable base to then throw in TV, which will just completely f*** your world up if you let it,” she said. “And it’s really, really hard for people not to let it.”
Laine retired from Two Chicks and a Hammer in 2019 but has continued to appear on “Good Bones.” She is currently renovating an old home in Wilmington, North Carolina, which she’s shared on Instagram. Both she and her daughter are interested in continuing to work with HGTV, albeit separately.
When asked by a fan about the end of “Good Bones,” Laine replied, “Just because Mina says it’s over for her, doesn’t mean the future doesn’t hold something for me.”
Meanwhile, Starsiak Hawk told People she’s filming the renovation of her new lake house and hopes to be part of HGTV for “as long as they want me to be there,” adding, “It’s the best place to be for what I do.”
In a statement issued to Deadline in August, HGTV said that though “Good Bones” is ending, they’re “currently in talks with Mina and Karen about other projects.”
New season 8 episodes of “Good Bones” air Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern time on HGTV. Starsiak Hawk also recently told viewers that the new season will begin streaming on Discovery+ on October 18.