Tarek El Moussa is reflecting on the gang fight that led to his arrest as a teenager.
The HGTV star opens up about the life-changing experience in his forthcoming memoir, “Flip Your Life,” revealing that he was charged with attempted murder at 17 for hitting someone with a bat.
“During the free-for-all, an older guy — maybe 19 or 20 — stepped toward me and swung his bat. I tried to jump out of the way, but the bat connected, hard — hard enough to break my ribs,” he recalls in an excerpt published by People Sunday.
“As a reaction, I dropped my arm and knocked the bat out of his hands. I grabbed the bat and hit him in the head. He dropped to the pavement and went unconscious.”
As more guys holding crowbars started running toward him, El Moussa, 42, says the cops showed up and “saved [his] life.”
“I can’t say for sure what happened next, but I must have blacked out. When I came to, I was sitting in the back of a police car, in handcuffs, charged with assault and battery, aggravated assault, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly weapon,” he shares.
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“Today I’m convinced that the police arrived at exactly the right moment. If I hadn’t been arrested, I would have been killed.”
He further recalls spending a short amount of time in juvenile detention before prosecutors determined that he had used the bat in self-defense. They eventually dropped the charges and he served “about a week” on house arrest.
The “Flip or Flop” alum reflected on his decision to include those personal details in the book, telling People, “It’s part of my story.”
However, El Moussa explained that wasn’t the only violent run-in in his past.
“That one had the most extreme consequences for me, but that was not the most extreme. I’ve been in shootings, I’ve been in knife fights, I’ve been hit in the face with a bat. You name it, I’ve had it,” he said.
“That’s why I shared what I shared. [To show] you can literally be a gang banger right now, robbing people, and you can flip your life. Anybody can change. They just have to want to.”
The father of three also gets candid in the memoir about the gun incident that led to his 2018 divorce from Christina Hall.
According to People, El Moussa writes that he took a .38-caliber pistol with him to Chino Hills State Park for protection following a “blowup” with his now-ex-wife, who then called 911.
The reality star claims that when the police arrived via helicopter one of the officers “pointed a rifle” at him. El Moussa adds that the incident was the “very last time” he and Hall were “together as a family.”
“Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress — in Real Estate, Business, and Life,” hits shelves on Feb. 6.
