DIY Network / YouTube Nicole Curtis from the premiere of "Rehab Addict"
HGTV’s Nicole Curtis has been in the home renovation show game for over 10 years now. In her latest two-hour sit-down interview for the “Spooky Hourz Podcast” with host and her crew member Jordan Garland, Curtis opened up about the various stages of her career, including her original HGTV audition for her show “Rehab Addict”, which at the time was not on anybody’s radars as a potential TV project.
Hear all about Curtis’s HGTV audition and the six months HGTV left her in limbo before buying the first season of her show, and watch the two-hour interview, below.
Nicole Curtis Was Only Asked to Make a Quick Guest Appearance on a Different Show
Nicole Curtis did not always aspire to TV stardom. The host began as a real estate agent and self-taught renovator who was “still doing side jobs” in Minneapolis but contemplating a move back to her home of Detroit when she got a voicemail from a production assistant on a home reno show, asking her to be a one-time guest. This was around 2009.
Curtis agreed but admits she went into the guest spot with ideas of her own show floating around.
The production team of this other show, which Curtis does not name, asked her to give a testimonial as a real estate agent that the host of the show added value by renovating, but they wouldn’t show her the house.
“Yeah, I can’t do that,” Curtis admits telling the production team, “I’m not gonna go against my brand and say something that doesn’t make sense. I buy old houses and I restore them.”
Curtis’s straightforward attitude piqued the producer’s interest. They asked all about her work restoring homes and asked her to show up the next day with a cameraman to record some test footage. Curtis said some of this test footage is still included in the “Rehab Addict” title sequence.
Six months later HGTV and DIY Network reached out to Curtis, who had already let go of any hope or expectations for her test footage, which she said had the working title “Princess of Preservation”. Her show was picked up, and they began shooting within the week.
“There’s certain people in my life who I call ‘life changers’, and John Kitchener [executive producer of “Rehab Addict”] is a ‘life changer’. Without a doubt,” Nicole Curtis said, speaking about how quickly the show changed her life.
Nicole Curtis Returns to Screens for ‘Most Difficult Project of My Career’
It began back in 2009, but Nicole Curtis is returning to screens 13 years later in her 2022 miniseries “Rehab Addict Lake House Rescue”, which premiered on November 3 on HGTV. This comes after a four-year break when Curtis stepped away from the spotlight.
People reports that Curtis began this lake house renovation eight years ago, thinking there was no project she couldn’t complete. This lake house on Lake Orion, right outside of Curtis’s hometown of Detroit, proved otherwise. Curtis called this the “most difficult, most expensive, and most complicated project of my career.”
In the three-episode miniseries “Rehab Addict Lake House Rescue”, Curtis promises to bring this project across the finish line, one way or another.
The remaining “Rehab Addict Lake House Rescue” episodes air Thursdays at 9 pm Eastern on HGTV and discovery+.
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