The Juiciest Rumors About HGTV's Property Brothers

The Property Brothers are as well known as HGTV stars really can be. Whether it's setting record viewing figures or Johnathan Scott's much-talked-about tabloid relationship with Zooey Deschanel, the Vancouver-born twins are seriously famous. Heck, Jonathan and Drew Scott have been on our screens for over 15 years and been parodied on "Saturday Night Live." Even the third Scott brother that isn't famous, is still kinda famous – here's the details about the Property Brothers' other brother, J.D. Scott.

Drew and his wife, Linda Phan, once opened up about the price of such fame, having to deal with everything from lack of privacy to the ever-turning rumor mill. "You know, sometimes if we're out with family or we're having an intimate dinner or something like that [fame] can be tough," Drew said in a vlog on the At Home with Linda and Drew Scott YouTube channel. "People sort of will come right in and ask for photos," he added. "It makes it harder for us to have that quiet private time." But that's not all. "Sometimes there may be pressure to respond to things publicly, before taking the time to process it internally," added Phan. Indeed, this family has had its fair share of gossip to respond to. 

With everything from fake death speculation to less-than-legit building practices to rude restaurant experiences, here are the juiciest rumors about the Scotts that we just couldn't ignore. Grab your paint-splattered overalls, because some of this gossip is pretty messy.

Like a modern-day Paul McCartney, Drew Scott allegedly also passed away at the height of his fame. "In the early hours of November 19, 2024, the world received the heartbreaking news of Drew Scott's tragic passing," reported a YouTube video announcing the so-called news (via Meaww). The world? It wasn't like this story was all over newsstands or adorned with CNN's red breaking news stamp ... or in the news at all. The video went on to suggest that Scott had crashed into a truck while driving and died due to the head injuries he sustained. So, was this true? One more sad detail about the lives of HGTV stars Drew and Jonathan Scott?

Thankfully, no. The rumor was quickly debunked. In fact, Scott posted an Instagram story from a Los Angeles Lakers game within 48 hours of the rumors emerging. As far as we know, the Crypto Arena isn't famous for being haunted by ghosts. Not to mention, the outlet that posted the Scott story also claimed that Ben Affleck and Mike Tyson had bitten the dust. They hadn't.

Thankfully again, however, unlike McCartney, there weren't rumors suggesting Scott's role in the "Property Brothers" had been taken by a doppelgänger due to his quote-unquote death. Fame, eh? It's not all ratings and red carpets. It's enough to reminisce about what those Property Brothers were doing before HGTV fame.

Like Rihanna and Ariana Grande before him, was Drew Scott planning to switch things up and move into the beauty industry? Well, that was what a 2017 rumor claimed. The move would've made sense. Drew's probably got a few mortgages to pay, and, according to NielsenIQ, the famous-face-fronted beauty industry has sales figures upwards of $1 billion.

However, Drew and his wife, Linda Phan (who was said to be partnering with her husband into a new industry), weren't quite business-savvy enough to get in on the ground floor with celebrity cosmetics. "The whole rumor is that I'm creating a skin care line to leave," Drew told Extra in 2017. "[I]t's fake news." It wasn't the first case of this kind of fake news. Before this Property Brothers-based rumor, fellow HGTV homemaker Joanna Gaines was also falsely rumored to be swapping structural demolition for salicylic acid.

"It's a funny thing because they have those fake stories that came out about Fixer Upper and then about us," Drew added, when speaking to People (via Country Living). "Somebody out there is just trying to create gossip." One thing's for sure, however, property bro Jonathan Scott had his tongue in his cheek regarding the rumor. "How come nobody assumes I'd be offered a fictitious skin cream?" he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). "Contractors can be supple!"

Nine out of 10 Americans, as per CBS News, say that they have a co-worker who annoys them. 68% have even gone one step further and confronted the person who rubbed them the wrong way. So, it stands to reason that Property Brothers, who have been on HGTV for more than 15 years, may have butted heads with other stars on the broadcaster's roster. At least, that's what one rumor claimed.

Allegedly, the Scotts' noses were out of joint after Chip and Joanna Gaines of "Fixer Upper" turned down an offer to appear on "Brother Vs. Brother" because they were busy. In fairness, it's the kind of lame excuse you'd use to get out of a half-hearted Hinge date or a friend of a friend's birthday. What's more, the Gaines were People's cover star before their HGTV stablemates got a first-page photoshoot. Drew Scott, however, played down any hard feelings in a New York Times profile. "No, we're not jealous of them," said the real estate ace. "They are phenomenally successful, the audience loves them, and our fans have been asking for us to do something together."

He added, when speaking to Fox News, that there was also a scheduling issue after rumors of a feud had reached fever pitch. "We know a lot of the [HGTV] talent really well," continued Drew. "We've met [Chip and Joanna] once or twice. They were really nice." Hmm. The renovator doth protest too much, perhaps?

From splitting the bill at a restaurant to deciding whether you should put toilet paper on your Splitwise, money can be a touchy subject. One way to get around it is to split everything equally, as Coldplay or the people of the Netherlands do. Considering the Property Brothers have had a very successful working relationship, you would assume they'd also have gone Dutch. At least, that's what Andy Cohen thought when he spoke to the Property Brothers in 2025. But, trust the boss of Bravo – the birthplace of the drama between Tiffany Moon and Kameron Westcott's family – to stir the pot.

The Property Brothers actually admitted to Cohen that they'd once fought over pay. "I used to film three times more than Drew," said Jonathan, speaking on SiriusXM's "Radio Andy." "He would come back at the end of an episode, and I was there doing the work. I remember, after doing this for 10 years ... I finally said to Drew, I'm like, 'Should I maybe get paid three times what you get paid?'" Safe to say that query didn't go well, with Drew drawing a line under the whole thing. "'You're never allowed to bring this up again, ever,'" said Jonathan, quoting his twin. Evidently, money was a touchy subject for these two, too. Though, how much the Property Brothers are worth now is also the result of their making strides in the home design retail space, so it hasn't all been about what their pay stubs from HGTV say.

Do HGTV's Property Brothers fake their shows? Is it all more smoke and mirrors than siblings and home makeovers? "How is it they constantly have clean tool belts on with really shiny tools?" asked one HGTV fan on Reddit. "Yet they walk around measuring things, acting like they are going build something," they added. "Stop. No one is buying it." Indeed, it seems many are not buying what the Property Brothers are selling (and we're not talking real estate here).

Question marks had also been raised about the legitimacy of Jonathan and Drew Scott's televised renovations after a 2017 New York Times profile. From Jonathan being asked to re-take his re-modelling of a bathroom (read: taking out the toilet) to the show's director making laborers moonlight as supporting actors and directing them as Stanley Kubrick did on "Spartacus," it doesn't exactly put the real in reality TV.

"At the end of the day, it has to be interesting television," Drew said, speaking to the NYT's reporter. "But when we find a load-bearing wall, we are really finding a load-bearing wall." It's no surprise, really. It'd be naive to think that this is cinéma vérité. After all, the brothers have deadlines to hit. Let's just say it's structured reality, a genre their show won an Emmy for in 2015, and draw a line under this rumor.

"[The Property Brothers] spent $123,100 on a [couple's] very small house. The numbers just don't add up," said an HGTV fan about the brothers' budgets on Reddit. "That make over should have been $60k, [$75k] at the most. Most people could have it done for less than $50k." So, are the Scotts engaged in some creative accounting? Are they not making their money go as far as it could?

It's gossip the brothers categorically deny. In fact, they've said they're more cost-efficient than your local property developer. "We always say it's unlikely that someone would be able to renovate for the same price that we do because ... we don't charge for our design team," Jonathan Scott said (via The Salt Lake Tribune). "The shows on HGTV are not trying to trick anybody with what the costs are," Drew Scott concurred. "When we get something as a trade-out, we still show the retail value of that in the budget."

However, that reassurance didn't convince amateur developers or internet commentators alike, who'd bite your hand off to get a fraction of the Scott's budget. Guess we'll just have to take the HGTV professional's word for it.

Given the number of houses these two have made homes together, it's not inconceivable that they'd want to make one for themselves. Indeed, as per PopCulture, a rumor emerged that Jonathan Scott was going to take up residence in a Los Angeles fixer-upper he brought with his brother, Drew Scott, for $2.4 million. Conveniently, the pad was just a stone's throw from Drew's home, which he shares with his wife, Linda Phan. It kinda sounded like the Property Brothers were plotting some sort of Kardashian-esque Californian enclave.

"There apparently are lots of cyber creepers that follow the real estate transactions that happen," said Jonathan when speaking to People in 2019 about their aforementioned new pad. "The house is not for me," he then confirmed. But if Jonathan won't be using it, who will? Well, to paraphrase mumble-rap's Playboi Carti, they bought their parents a house off that HGTV s***.

Five years later, the pair did a photoshoot showing off the spruced-up abode that now belonged to their ma and pa. "We wanted our parents to feel just as much at home here as they did at their ranch in the Canadian Rocky Mountains," the brothers said (via Today). "[S]o we tailored the home perfectly to them." Indeed, the home is bedecked with family-specific memorabilia and a fireplace for family gatherings. So, the rumors were almost true. It is a Scott, or two, living there. In fact, HGTV's Property Brothers often keep things local.

In 2021, the Property Brothers' abilities were called into question via a lawsuit. It was a lawsuit that suggested the siblings weren't making forever homes, but instead making uninhabitable ones. Mindy and Paul King, a couple from Las Vegas who appeared on "Property Brothers" in 2019, claimed the show's renovations left them with dodgy code-violating electrical fittings, a flood-causing dishwasher, and an unusable oven, among myriad other issues. The charges that were levelled against the production company Cineflix and local business Villia Construction include fraud, misrepresentation, and faulty workmanship. ​​The whole ordeal put the King's out of pocket by almost $200,000. Yikes. But, was there any truth to the complaints, or were the Kings going all Karen?

Well, Jonathan and Drew Scott have remained pretty schtum about the affair. Although, as per House Beautiful, their lawyer has said that the pair are not named in the lawsuit and the claims are not the siblings' fault. However, if the Kings are to be believed, the Scotts didn't exactly help the situation...

"Our reveal took hours to film," Mindy told the New York Post. "[B]ecause we're like 'What's wrong with this? Why does this look like this?'" The internet seems to side with the Kings. As one user on Reddit put it, "I can't think of any 'reality' renovation show that doesn't scam the people."

Did the Property Brothers swap HGTV for ABC's "Family Feud"? According to one rumor, they did. But figuratively, not literally. Around the same time Drew Scott wed Linda Phan in 2018, Jonathan Scott had been broken up with by his long-term partner. Ouch. Subsequently, Jonathan, allegedly, felt more like a stranger than a brother. "Jonathan is feeling completely isolated and abandoned," said a so-called source that spoke to Star magazine at the time (via Wonderwall). "This could mean the end of TV's most successful partnerships." Compellingly, there'd also been gossip that suggested the pair had brotherly beef earlier the same year. Was there fire to this smoke?

Thankfully, it's safe to say these rumors was built on shaky foundations. Heck, brothers do not have to spend every waking moment together, especially when they work together, too. Drew himself even shut down the earlier rumor himself. "Ha," he wrote on X, as per Wonderwall. "Some people love to make up fake drama. Our family is as close as we've always been!"

In fact, they've only ever had three fights, as they told the "Howie Mandel Does Stuff" podcast in 2023, and those all happened in their youth. How do they keep away from conflict? "We call it our no BS policy," said Drew. "We get on each other's nerves from time to time," he added. "You get it out, you deal with it, you move on." It's sage advice for any relationship, family or otherwise.

As you may be aware, now, thanks to Pete Hegseth, members of the U.S. Military must be clean-shaven. It might not be something you've ever personally come across, because appearance-based policy is considered out of touch in the modern workplace. But, apparently, another company that still has a grooming code is HGTV.

Interestingly, this cosmetic regime rumor was actually started by the Property Brothers themselves, when they spilt the tea – or hair dye – in 2025. "I probably have more gray than you do," said Drew Scott, speaking to the famously silver-haired Andy Cohen on "Andy Cohen Live" (via EntertainmentNOW). "I just dye it every three weeks," he added. "I had, like, this big Santa beard. And then I dyed it just before coming back to [do] press ... It's mainly because the network says they're not ready for me to look older yet."

The cable network also doesn't let Jonathan Scott's graying strands off scot-free either, if you pardon the pun. "I started going gray before [Drew] did," Jonathan confirmed. "I actually am totally fine with the silver look, but the network was always like, 'No, we're just not ready.'" Judging by how these bros have kept the same jet black coiffures from childhood all the way into their 40s, we'll take their word for it.

Apparently, celebrities aren't always on their best behavior at restaurants. Heck, just look at the furor surrounding Chappell Roan and her allegedly setting a bodyguard on child fans during a hotel breakfast. Or, when legendary New York restaurateur Kieth McNally banned and called out James Corden for rudeness at one of his eateries. According to a rumor-maker on Reddit, Zooey Deschanel and Jonathan Scott also once forgot their p's and q's when eating out.

"[Deschanel and Scott have] come in to a restaurant I worked for," wrote the user. "[T]hey're so f***ing rude." The online gossiper then elaborated, saying their workplace had a fast food-esque policy of ordering at the counter, then finding your table. On a particularly busy day, they claimed the "New Girl" star and Property Brother swanned in and took a seat, requesting immediate and quick table service. The couple was denied such treatment, and they subsequently stormed out, stating they'd never visit the establishment again. Do bear in mind, though, this is just one post online. But it's not the only unverified story about Scott's fiancée's bad dining etiquette. Actually, there have been quite a few. So, we'll let you, dear reader, make a judgment call on this rumor.

Although there's no proof that this particular uncomfortable encounter happened, there have been many awkward "Property Brothers" moments that have been caught on camera.