HGTV's Nicole Curtis' Career Has Been Full Of Controversy

It seems fairly safe to say that Nicole Curtis' time at HGTV has come to an end. Following what had already been a tumultuous relationship between Curtis and network, with the home designer taking numerous leaves of absence for various reasons over the years, HGTV officially axed Curtis and pulled her shows off of streaming after some inappropriate behavior on her part came to light, despite her apparent efforts to keep it under wraps. However, even before the footage that would lead to the termination of her HGTV deal surfaced online, the "Rehab Addict" star was no stranger to controversies and backlash.

For what is ostensibly a wholesome network centered around gardening, home improvement, and things of that nature, HGTV certainly seems to be the epicenter of a lot of drama. From reputation-tarnishing legal battles to messy divorces, numerous scandals have rocked HGTV in the past. With that in mind, here's a look back at HGTV star Nicole Curtis' controversial career.

For a number of years, Nicole Curtis and her ex-boyfriend Shane Maguire were locked in a public and protracted legal battle over the custody of their son, which got a little weird and more than a little petty. Per People, the dispute entered the public eye in 2016, when Curtis claimed in her book "Better Than New" that she had originally planned to raise her son by herself after Maguire was less than excited by the news of her pregnancy — a claim Maguire denied through his lawyer. It later came to light that Maguire's legal bid for joint custody had been successful, but that's where things take another turn.

Apparently, while Curtis agreed to the overall deal, she had also attempted to block Maguire from receiving overnight custody on the grounds that she had to breastfeed their son for every meal, which led to a sub-conflict between the exes. It then became Curtis' turn to go on the defensive, with the HGTV star denying her ex-boyfriend's claim that she was using breastfeeding as a pretense to take more than her fair share of time with their son. 

As People reports, Maguire eventually filed for sole custody of his and Curtis' son while continuing to accuse his ex-girlfriend of manipulating the situation in an effort to turn their son against him. Evidently, though, cooler heads prevailed, and the two reached a new joint-custody deal in 2018.

While Nicole Curtis settled her long custody dispute with her ex-boyfriend in 2018, she immediately found herself in another lengthy legal battle. That same year, she entered what would prove to be a years-long back-and-forth with the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) over a property they both claimed ownership of.

Per KATU, it all started when Curtis, a Michigan native, purchased an abandoned, rundown house in Detroit for $17,000 with the intent of renovating it. That's when the DLBA entered the picture to claim that it was actually the rightful owner of the house, despite the fact that Curtis had already spent more than three times the initial purchase cost on renovation expenses. What's more, it eventually came to light that Curtis had apparently been taken for a ride way back in the beginning, as the individuals who sold the property to her were supposedly found to not actually be its legal owners.

As KATU reported at the time, a judge ultimately ruled in the HGTV star's favor in 2021 on the grounds that she had beaten the DLBA to the punch in terms of filing paperwork to legally claim the property. However, while it's true that Curtis appeared to be fully in the right with respect to this particular legal battle, her propensity for ending up in court likely started to overshadow her work as an author and TV host in the eyes of some of her fans.

Nicole Curtis once again found herself in legal hot water in June 2025, when it came to light, courtesy of The US Sun, that a man claiming to be Curtis' business partner had sued her and her production company for $25,000. The man, an A/V professional by the name of Jordan Garland, alleged that the "Rehab Addict" star had refused to pay him for his work on the show and robbed him of a promised stake in the company. Curtis hit back, claiming that Garland had indeed been paid, and that he was brought on board as an independent contractor, not an employee or business partner.

With that in mind, Curtis motioned to have the matter dismissed — and she ultimately got her wish just a few months later. In October 2025, The US Sun followed up on its initial report to break the news that the case had officially been thrown out of court. At the time, neither Curtis nor HGTV itself issued a statement on the matter, with both the designer and her employer seemingly eager to put the matter behind them. Unfortunately for Curtis, however, her biggest public scandal was yet to come. And it was one HGTV couldn't ignore.

In February 2026, Nicole Curtis' time with HGTV came to an unceremonious end after a video of the "Rehab Addict" star using a racial slur while filming the show leaked onto the internet. In the video, which was first posted by Radar Online, Curtis seems to immediately recognize her mistake. "What the f*** is that that I just said? Nick, you gotta, you gotta, can you kill that?" she said, seemingly asking someone on the production team to delete the footage. HGTV took swift action when the video came out, canceling Curtis' show and pulling it off of streaming platforms.

"Not only is language like this hurtful and disappointing to our viewers, partners, and employees — it does not align with the values of HGTV ... We remain dedicated to fostering a culture of respect and inclusion across our content and our workplace," the network said in a statement (via People). Curtis issued a statement of her own to TMZ, in which she apologized for using the slur and claimed that the moment that was captured on camera was an isolated incident, as it was "not part of my vocabulary and never has been."

In a post she made to Instagram about a week after the initial controversy, Curtis claimed that someone she knows in her personal life (rather than a crew member, as some had speculated) made a copy of the footage and threatened to release it unless she paid a ransom, which she refused to do. Of course, many are more concerned with the fact that she used the word in question in the first place. As one commenter wrote under a separate Instagram post, "You don't accidentally say that word."