What To Know
- Heather Rae El Moussa responded to a fan question about her personal finances.
- The Selling Sunset star noted that she doesn’t come from money and praised how hard her parents worked during her childhood.
- Heather recently addressed why filming for Season 2 of HGTV’s The Flip Off has taken longer than expected.
Fans may be used to seeing Heather Rae and Tarek El Moussa renovate and sell million-dollar homes on TV, but many don’t know the work the pair put in behind the scenes to get to where they are today.
While answering fan questions via her Instagram Story on Wednesday, July 8, Heather responded to a user’s surprising comment about her personal finances. “How does it feel to never have to worry about money?” the fan asked in the since-expired post, per EntertainmentNow.
Replying to the fan, Heather stated, “So, I think that’s a very unfair, rude question. But, I’m glad that you asked because I’m sure other people just assume things about me as well, and my husband.”
Heather noted that she comes from a “working-class family,” stating, “We did not have a lot of money. My parents were raised… Well, my dad, especially, was very poor growing up.”
Heather said she “never really saw” her dad growing up because he worked so often as a truck driver. “He would leave about 5:30 in the morning and get home at 8 o’clock at night to support our family,” she explained.
Netflix
Her mother, meanwhile, worked as a hairstylist before taking a career break to raise Heather and her sister, Jenna. “When she went back to work, she became a librarian at an elementary school to be around me more and my sister,” Heather told her followers.
Tarek’s parents, meanwhile, immigrated to the U.S. from Belgium and Lebanon. “Tarek’s family came from another country and started their lives here. And built everything fresh, from scratch,” she said. “So we didn’t come from money. Tarek and I, both separately and together, worked very hard to get to where we are today.”
Following her career as an actress and model, Heather began her real estate career in 2014 and later joined the luxury Los Angeles brokerage The Oppenheim Group. She went on to star in Seasons 1 through 7 of Netflix‘s Selling Sunset, later making a cameo in Season 9 and returning as a full-time cast member for the upcoming Season 10.
She and Tarek wed in 2021 and welcomed their son, Tristan, in 2023. Tarek also shares his eldest two children, Taylor and Brayden, with his ex-wife, Christina Haack. Heather and Tarek’s HGTV series, The Flipping El Moussas, premiered in 2023 but was canceled after two seasons last year.
The couple will soon return to HGTV alongside Haack for Season 2 of The Flip Off. During the same Instagram Story Q&A, Heather opened up about why filming for the show has taken longer than expected. (The stars began production on Season 2 in September 2025.)
“Because we are flipping houses, sometimes we have to take a little, tiny hiatus and let the house catch up because, you know, it’s construction and things can take a little bit longer, especially in a competition,” she explained. “There’s things that happen. But, yeah. So, we’re filming Season 2 right now.”
The Flip Off, Season 2, 2026, HGTV