11 Rumors About Joanna Gaines We Couldn't Ignore

It's easy to assume that home improvement pros are among the most innocuous stars television has to offer, but even some of the home reno space's top talent, including "Fixer Upper" stars Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines, arouses a little controversy from time to time. The couple also isn't immune from rumors, but some of the scuttlebutt about everyone's favorite shiplap-happy interior designer is as anodyne as one of her whitewashed kitchens.

When unnamed sources go tattling to the tabloids about their supposed inside info on celebs, the secrets they spill are usually of the more salacious variety. But there's at least one benevolent blabbermouth out there who started spreading good gossip about the Gainses via Closer Weekly. In 2018, the publication quoted a source as saying, "Chip and Joanna enjoy date nights. Joanna loves to cook, and they'll joke around in the kitchen together while she whips up Chip's favorite dishes." Scandalous stuff, right? Ahead of Chip's birthday in 2024, Closer Weekly got another exclusive scoop from an insider: "Joanna is planning a special celebration for him with the whole family."

While these bland remarks paint Joanna in the best possible light (and she knows better than anyone how important good lighting is), they aren't the type of juicy gossip that sells magazines. The more lucrative grapevine chatter about the Magnolia Network founder includes everything from talk of marital trouble with Chip to tea-spilling about squabbles with other celebs.

The longer a celebrity couple stays together, the more speculation they have to endure that Splitsville is just one exit away. Despite being married since 2003 and having five children together, Joanna Gaines and Chip Gaines just can't seem to leave their divorce rumors in the dust. "Someone [will] come up to me and say, 'I hear you and Chip are getting a divorce.' I'm like, 'Where did you hear?'" Joanna said in a 2017 "Today" interview.

Reports about marital strife for the HGTV stars always seem to proliferate when there's something major going on in their lives, such as the arrival of their youngest son, Crew Gaines, in 2018. According to a Radar report published the following February, this threw off the balance between running a business empire and taking care of their family so much that it threatened the exhausted parents' relationship. "A new baby was the last thing they needed right now," a source opined. "Their marriage is falling apart!"

In 2023, it was the National Enquirer's turn to suggest that the couple's habit of trying to juggle multiple big obligations at once had foredoomed their marriage to failure, but this time, it was a new business venture that was threatening everything Joanna and Chip had built together: their four-year-long renovation of the old Waco, Texas, building that would become Hotel 1928. "Every day there was another crisis that left them at each other's throats," an insider told the tabloid (via Radar). In a 2021 "Access" interview, Chip did confess, "We're not perfect and we have issues and trials and errors just like anybody." However, he and Joanna have vowed to never get divorced. "We're in it forever," said Chip.

Joanna Gaines' relationship with religion has had a huge influence on her life, and it's something she often speaks about in a positive light. But her beliefs came under scrutiny in 2016 when BuzzFeed reported that the pastor at her chosen place of worship, Antioch Community Church, had expressed anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments, including the view that teachers and business leaders should take a stance against same-sex marriage. It also didn't escape critics' notice that no same-sex homeowners had been featured on "Fixer Upper," and a rumor spread on Reddit that this was by design.

Joanna addressed the uproar over the BuzzFeed report in 2021. "The accusations that get thrown at you, like you're a racist or you don't like people in the LGBTQ community, that's the stuff that really eats my lunch — because it's so far from who we really are," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "That's the stuff that keeps me up."

When a gay couple appeared on her Magnolia Network show "Back to the Farm" in 2025, Joanna learned just how happy a very vocal subset of her fans had been to only see straight couples on "Fixer Upper." After Chip Gaines fired back at critics of the casting, it also became evident that Joanna's previous remarks hadn't quelled the rumors that she and her husband were anti-LGBTQ+. On Reddit, many commenters expressed surprise over Chip taking a stand against the hateful bigotry by criticizing "modern American Christian culture" on his X account.

The reason Joanna Gaines and Chip Gaines gave for quitting "Fixer Upper" in 2016 was a wholesome sentiment that was on-brand for the family-oriented pair. Joanna told People that their children — who were still just a foursome at the time — were the driving force behind the decision. "They're so young and we want to give them the chance to have a normal childhood," she explained. According to Us Weekly, overzealous fans were also to blame; a source claimed the Gaineses had security concerns over admirers flocking to their home.

But in 2017, insiders told Page Six it was actually a shrewd business move. In a nutshell, Joanna was purportedly unhappy with her contract and was playing hard to get in hopes of being offered a better deal when Discovery acquired HGTV. "[Chip and Joanna] are using this end of their contract as a total renegotiation to get the deal they really want: more money, less work, more control," a source said. Another unnamed insider told Vanity Fair Joanna had butted heads with her former bosses over using her show to promote products from her line of home goods.

While Joanna's reps denied these reports, there might have been a kernel of truth to them. Discovery didn't just offer her a better contract, but her own television network — and out went those plans to spend more time with her young children, despite the addition of a new baby (Crew was born less than a year before the plan to launch the Magnolia Network was announced).

When the tabloids learned that Joanna Gaines and Jennifer Lopez had struck up a surprising friendship, a flurry of rumors soon followed. During a February 2019 appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Lopez revealed that she was a "Fixer Upper" superfan and had asked Gaines for some help decorating a house in Malibu she and her then-boyfriend Alex Rodriguez had purchased. The two women were later spotted outside the property with cameras in tow, and Radar claimed that they had a new home reno show in the pipeline. "They are talking about working together on something very special," said gossip columnist Rob Shuter.

Unfortunately, we never got a "Jenny Reni" series, and J.Lo decided to sell the house — but not before Radar got a little more mileage out of the talk of Jenny from the Block helping Jo from Waco overhaul her new space. According to the webloid, Lopez was repaying her new friend by helping the HGTV star overhaul her workout routine. "Joanna would do anything to look like Jen, and J.Lo's happy to show her how to do it!" said a source. "Jo's thin but her arms and legs have no definition. Jenny is showing her how to gain both strength and tone." In addition to being Gaines' personal trainer during their joint gym sessions, Lopez had also convinced her to get a fake tan, according to the source.

The list of people Meghan Markle was accused of copying with her As Ever brand and Netflix series is long, and according to Radar, Joanna Gaines believes that she belongs on it. The tabloid claimed that Joanna felt like the "With Love, Meghan" star had drawn a little too much inspo from her Magnolia product line when she started building her own brand. "The aesthetic is way too close for comfort. ... Gaines is too polite to say anything publicly, but she's taken aback that so much of her playbook is being recreated, to put it kindly," a source said.

However, the Duchess of Sussex stayed out of the "Mini Reni" star's lane with her first As Ever product launches, which included fruit spread, flower sprinkles, honey, and rosé. Over on Joanna's Magnolia website, the offerings are less ingestible: decorative items, furniture, kitchenware, and other home goods. And while Prince Harry and Meghan aren't everyone's cup of tea, Joanna's husband actually admires the American half of the pair. In his book "No Pain, No Gaines: The Good Stuff Doesn't Come Easy," he describes Meghan as both dynamic and strong (hmm ... sounds a lot like a certain someone in his life).

Is the home renovation space getting too cramped for all its designers, contractors, and real estate agents? If some reports are to be believed, several HGTV stars have been embroiled in messy feuds, and because Joanna Gaines was once the queen bee over there, her name got dragged into the bad blood gossip more than once. 

In 2021, OK! USA claimed that Joanna's Magnolia Network launch had sparked a not-so-friendly competition with "Home Town" stars Erin Napier and Ben Napier, whose history of scandals probably helped make the rumor seem more believable. The tabloid's insider also cast Erin as the Regina George in their dubious scenario. "Jo particularly wishes Erin would stop ridiculing her minimalist design," they said, adding, "Behind the scenes, Erin says Jo's gone Hollywood,' kissing up to celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Jimmy Fallon." In its own report, OK! USA had to disclose that Joanna's rep deemed its claims untrue.

Unfortunately for Joanna, it didn't help squash speculation that she doesn't play well with the remaining HGTV talent when "Property Brothers" stars Drew Scott and Jonathan Scott told theNew York Times that she and Chip Gaines had turned down an invite to appear on their show. "No, we're not jealous of them," Drew assured their interviewer, which, of course, makes anyone who enjoys a good celebrity squabble assume that the opposite is true. Drew later tried to demolish the rivalry rumors by telling Fox News, "We've met [Chip and Joanna] once or twice. They were really nice." There's only one place where these fake feuds can be settled: in front of the judgmental fans of Ty Pennington's "Rock the Block."

It's no secret that some Waco, Texas, residents aren't happy with Joanna Gaines because she turned their town into a tourist trap. But traffic problems and higher property taxes aren't the only complaints locals have about the woman whose kingdom near the Brazos River includes some old silo towers and a patch of artificial turf. Over on Reddit, some people claim that Joanna is quite the ice princess — or according to one commenter, she's more akin to a fairy tale villain. "I had several friends work for them and several friends who served them at various businesses and heard the same story, Chip is great and seemingly genuine and Jo is a witch," they wrote.

Another Redditor's Joanna story read, "She parked super close to my friend's car, and [her] kids were really crazy getting out of the car and almost hit his. When he said something about it, Joanna was an absolute ass to him." The "Magnolia Table" star was also accused of being rude to one commenter's mother when she dared to warmly greet Joanna at a restaurant. "Joanna looked at us, rolled her eyes, and kept walking," they recalled. "Chip smiled, said hello, and waved back."

Some of Joanna's former Magnolia employees found working there challenging, but being her kids' babysitter might be even more stressful, as it requires answering to the big boss herself. Of a coworker who once had this gig, a Redditor wrote, "She said Joanna was one of the worst people she has ever met. Very rude and better than everyone else." While you obviously can't believe everything you read on Reddit, it's not the best look for there to be so many of these anecdotes.

One of the less scandalous rumors about Joanna Gaines (and one of the most embarrassing rumors about Chip Gaines) is that she once raised a stink about her husband's stink. In 2023, the National Enquirer reported that poor Chip was getting banished from their bedroom some nights because Joanna found his stench so overwhelming. "Jo has put up with Chip neglecting hygiene for years and it's only gotten worse. She can't stand it anymore. It's nasty," a source said (via Radar).

The insider further claimed that Chip's unruly mane also irked his wife, and fans had their own criticisms of his hair to share when he grew it out. It had a tendency to get a bit greasy, which was possibly a sign that he wasn't shampooing it every day. And while we don't know whether Joanna really thought Chip needed to be hosed down in the backyard like a golden retriever, we do know that she wanted him to get rid of his long, golden locks. In a May 2025 interview with Parade, he revealed that she even requested it as a birthday gift. "She was like, begging me ... and I was like, that doesn't feel fair, that for your birthday, you're going to ask that I get a haircut," he said.

The flawlessness of Joanna Gaines' makeup-free face would make skincare products sell out faster than you can say "Fixer Upper" if she ever launched her own beauty brand, so it was easy for fans to believe a rumor that she was going to quit her show and do so. "I wanted to take a minute to let y'all know that it's simply not true," she wrote in a 2017 Instagram post.

This rumor was actually more dangerous than others, as it went beyond online chatter — a skincare company was falsely claiming that Gaines was associated with it and using this deception to scam purchasers out of large sums of money. "I was scrolling through my online banking account and I saw a couple of odd looking charges, and they were for $97 and 98 each," one victim told NBC 5 DFW. Gaines assured fans her team was working to get the business's websites and ads taken down, and she issued a warning on Instagram. "This is a SCAM!" she wrote. We have nothing to do with it and have been trying to stop it for some time."

A 2021 National Enquirer article about Joanna Gaines wasn't exactly a hit piece; if anything, it was a testament to how tenacious and hard-working she is. The tabloid claimed that she was burning herself out over all the irons she had in the fire but not recharging with enough much-needed sleep at night. "Jo doesn't seem to realize what she's doing to herself, but others are worried," a source revealed. One of those concerned parties was reportedly Chip Gaines. "He's telling her to slow down and stop drinking so much coffee, which gives her the jitters, but she's not listening," the insider said.

When Joanna added yet another business venture to her overloaded plate in 2019 — her Magnolia Press café — she revealed that she does go a little overboard with the java on occasion. "I'm not sure what I am doing here — could be that I may have had too much coffee (probably)," she captioned a photo of herself on X grinning widely while holding a potted plant to her face.

Interestingly, Radar also mentioned her caffeine consumption in its story about her friendship with Jennifer Lopez, claiming that the "Control Myself" singer had told Joanna that she needed to get it under control. Luckily, Joanna didn't reenact Elizabeth Berkley's caffeine-fueled "I'm So Excited" scene from "Saved By the Bell" (that we know of), and she took a bit of a breather in 2024. "I, as a mother ... need that time emotionally," she said on the "Business of Home" podcast of her three-month break.

Being a woman in the spotlight, it was inevitable that whether or not Joanna Gaines' womb had an occupant would frequently be used as tabloid fodder. In October 2017, she listed having a baby on board as one of the many rumors about her that were not accurate — at the time. "There's so many [rumors] ... I had this skincare line, so I'm leaving ["Fixer Upper"] ... that our marriage is on the rocks ... I was pregnant," she told ET. "It's funny when you start hearing this stuff. I was like, 'I guess people can just make stuff up.'"

But less than three months later, she and Chip Gaines were announcing that they were expecting their fifth child. While that news was enough to keep the tabloids' celebrity pregnancy fanfic brigade quiet for a while, Chip gave them a reason to scurry back to their keyboards in 2019 when he said he could picture another little one in their future. "Just know, this is going to be the headline forever: 'Jo's pregnant again,'" his media-savvy wife said during their joint "Today" interview. "I'm like, 'Chip I think we've got enough, I think we're good!"