Former HGTV Star Nicole Curtis Regrets ‘Chasing the Money’: Report

Heavy/HGTV Nicole Curtis

Fans of “Rehab Addict” star Nicole Curtis have expressed surprise and even disbelief over an interview in which the former HGTV personality admitted she would “trade everything” to get back all the time she missed with her family while “chasing the money” that came with fame.

In an article published on November 18, 2024, Curtis told Fox News Digital, “If I could get those years back, I would trade everything in a heartbeat.”

Last seen on HGTV in November 2022 on a three-episode series called “Rehab Addict Lake House Rescue,” Curtis told Fox that she’s staging a TV comeback, but will now never agree to anything that takes “time away from my family.”

Nicole Curtis Says She Never Chased Fame, But Wanted a Better Life for Herself & Sons

Curtis is raising her nine-year-old son Harper, whom she shares with ex Shane Maguire, and has a 26-year-old son, Ethan, whom she had with ex-husband Steven Cimini. The Detroit native told Fox that Ethan was in sixth grade when she began filming “Rehab Addict,” hoping to build a better life for the two of them.

“I wasn’t chasing fame,” she told Fox. “I know there are a lot of influencers now and everything that – they just want their face on camera. They want a TV show. They want to do that.”

“I just wanted to live comfortably,” Curtis continued. “I wanted to give my son a life that he could enjoy things in life without seeing me struggle. And I was a house cleaner and I was a real estate agent. I was selling [expletive] on Craigslist.”

“I was chasing the money,” she admitted to Fox. “I was chasing that money hard because I wanted a better life for us. And there were moments when – I’ll be honest – when I definitely thought maybe this would have been better if I was still cleaning houses because I did sacrifice quality time with a family in those early years.”

Curtis’ popular home restoration show, “Rehab Addict,” aired for a decade on the DIY Network and then on HGTV until the fall of 2018, when she went on a two-year hiatus. After a years-long custody battle over her youngest son, according to People Magazine, she’d reached a 50/50 custody agreement Maguire in October 2018 and took a break from TV to spend more time with Harper.

Curtis returned to HGTV in January 2021 with the premiere of “Rehab Addict Rescue,” which featured eight one-hour episodes in which she helped clients whose home restoration projects had grown too overwhelming. After the first show aired, HGTV issued a press release calling it a “ratings winner right out of the gate.”

Fans eagerly awaited a second season, but in August 2022, Curtis wrote in her Instagram Stories, “So, I ditched the #rehabaddictrescue. While it was fun and rated great…I kept thinking why I am putting energy into houses that aren’t mine.”

After her brief spin-off series about her lake house aired that fall, which coincided with a renewed custody battle, Curtis urged her fans to ask HGTV to hire her for more “Rehab Addict,” but that hasn’t materialized with the network. Instead, Curtis told Fox that she has been busy creating her own production company and filming for a show she hopes will air somewhere soon.

After years of relying on other production companies and crews to get her shows on-air, she told Fox, “Now I’m going to do all the heavy lifting and we’re going to run it the way that I need it to run so that it works properly for my life and my family.”

But agreeing to a TV deal for the money is “something I will not do this time,” Curtis told the outlet. “I don’t care what it is. You cannot put a check in front of me that is going to take time away from my family. So I think that’s absolutely the thing I would tell my younger self is that, you know what – you’ll figure it out. You’ll figure it out. And I did.”

Fans Stunned by Nicole Curtis Saying She Has Regrets

Known for her assertive and sometimes brash personality, Curtis has long taken pride in being a female home restoration expert in an industry dominated by men. So her admissions in the Fox News Digital article surprised many of her diehard fans.

Some insisted the story was “fake news,” assuming the outlet skewed her words, despite Curtis writing in her caption that it was “not a bad article.”

One person wrote, “WHAT!!!!! NOT RIGHT THEY DONT KNOW!!!”

Another quipped, “I stopped with my sip of wine and thought what the heck!! What BS”

“I’m confused,” another follower commented. “After you sacrificed to build wealth that you no longer need to sacrifice and can give your kids a great life as a single mom, you want to tell others not to sacrifice to give their kids a better life (which seems to really guilt others who want a better life for their own kids?). Or is that the slanted angle this mysoginistic ‘news’ organization is taking from your story?”

Some readers clapped back at Curtis, including one who tweeted, “It’s easy to say you won’t prioritize the mortgage or gas in the car when you have the money to say those things. It’s when you don’t have the money…”

But many also praised Curtis for her honesty and celebrated her hope to get back on TV on her own terms, including a fan who wrote, “No regrets! You did what you could to provide! Kudos!”