Tarek El Moussa admitted to going through “physical and emotional hell” in the weeks following his turbulent breakup with Christina Hall.

The former couple was married for seven years before splitting up in 2016 after an altercation with a pistol.

In an unusual turn of events, the HGTV star retreated into a natural area with a pistol following a “blowup” altercation with Hall.

The television celebrity phoned the cops on Tarek out of worry that he would harm himself, a simple misunderstanding that sparked the end of their marriage.

The Flip or Flop alum shared his perspective on the occurrence in his book, Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress – in Real Estate, Business, and Life.

According to People, El Moussa stated that he just “went out to our backyard in Yorba Linda and hopped over the fence” to exercise and scout the nearby trails.

He took a.38-caliber pistol as a precaution against mountain lions and bobcats, who frequented the nearby Chino Hills State Park.

The real estate investor stated that he initially thought there was an emergency nearby when a chopper appeared overhead, but he quickly realised it was for him when a police officer pointed a firearm at him.

“For the next several hours, I sat on a cooler in my driveway, handcuffed,” Tarek recounted in his book.

“That was the very last time we were together as a family: with Christina walking down the driveway, crying, and me sitting there in handcuffs, asking myself, What in the world is going on?” he said.

After the incident was made public, the reality star fell into a downward spiral due to defamation and was out of the public eye for several months.

El Moussa eventually began to heal after his friends intervened to get him back on track, and he had a “breakthrough moment” when he met his present wife Heather at a Fourth of July party in 2019.