Why Tarek El Moussa, Heather El Moussa Surprised His Daughter With Car
Tarek El Moussa, Heather Rae El Moussa Reveal Why They Surprised His Daughter With Lavish Birthday Gift
For Tarek El Moussa, getting his daughter Taylor a flipping amazing 16th birthday present was obvious.
After The Flipping El Moussas star gifted his and ex Christina Haack’s eldest a luxury car for her milestone birthday in August, he shared exactly why he, his wife Heather Rae El Moussa and Haack felt Taylor deserved the very best on her big day.
“Well, it turns out, as a father, when your daughter kicks ass, gets a 4.2 GPA, is MVP of the soccer team, you really want to surprise her,” Tarek exclusively told E! News in a joint interview with Heather at Page Six's 2026 Virtual Reali-Tea Awards in New York City Oct. 6. “So, dad, stepmom, mom, we all surprised her.”
And accolades aside, Tarek—who also shares son Brayden, 10, with Christina as well as 3-year-old son Tristan with Heather—noted she’s also just “the best kid.”
“She didn't ask for it,” he emphasized. “We gave it to her. There's a big difference.”
As Heather put it, “She's a good girl. She deserves it. She works really hard.”
Plus, she didn’t take the gift for granted.
“She’s very grateful,” Heather added. “She cried. It was really sweet. We surprised her, and she started crying.”
The Flip Off stars banded together to surprise Taylor with a light blue SUV this past summer, which Heather chronicled in a joint Aug. 13 Instagram Reel where the teen can be seen getting emotional as she takes in the extravagant present.
Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images
“What’s more of a surprise... the car for Taylor or the fact that the three of us actually pulled this off?” Heather captioned the post. “The car is so well deserved, we love you so much Tay.”
As for whether the other kids in their blended family have new wheels in their future?
“My stepson, he is probably the bougiest one out of all of them,” Heather joked to E! News of Brayden. “He's so cute, and he works hard too.”
“And then our little 3-and-a half-year-old is obsessed with cars and trucks and everything,” she added, “so he's gonna want something nice, but they gotta work hard for it.”
Photo by Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for "Selling Sunset"
That’s especially true for Heather and Tarek’s “threenager.”
“So, I thought, ‘Oh, babies are so easy’ because he was really good, and I was like, ‘Oh, our teenager is way harder.’ Now it's flip flopped,” Heather explained. “She is like chill, easy. He is 3 and a half. He's wild, but it's so fun.”
And while life with a toddler can be a battle, with Heather noting that their son “argues with me all day,” she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Toddlers are so fascinating to me,” she said. “I think they are just so adorable, so fun, and it makes life enjoyable every day.”
“We could be having the worst day, stress, like awful things, and you come home and his hugs and kisses and love—it’s everything,” she added. “It's better than anything in the world.”
For a deeper dive into Tarek, Heather and Christina’s blended family tree, keep reading…
Taylor Reese El Moussa, Christina and Tarek's Daughter
Christina and Tarek welcomed their first child together on Sept. 22, 2010.
Following their divorce, the pair continued to co-parent their daughter, who Christina has described as an "old soul who one minute can talk super deep about life and then quickly go back to being a kid."
"Her greatest ability is being able to start a conversation with anyone, anywhere," she said of Taylor. "Fun, smart, athletic, HAPPY, and always keeping us on our toes."
Brayden James El Moussa, Christina and Tarek's Son
Christina and Tarek welcomed their second child together on Aug. 20, 2015.
In addition to their oldest child Taylor, the two have continued to co-parent Brayden after their divorce. In the past, Tarek has described their son as "a ball of energy" and the "sweetest boy with the biggest heart."
"No words can describe how much brighter this boy makes my day," Tarek shared. "I feel blessed every single day to be his and Tay's dad and raising him and seeing him grow up makes me the happiest dad alive."
Ant Anstead, Christina's Second Husband
Almost a year after announcing her split from Tarek, Christina started dating Ant, a TV presenter from England, in October 2017. The two went public with their relationship in January 2018—the same month Christina's divorce from Tarek was finalized—and tied the knot in a winter-themed wedding at their home in Newport Beach, Calif., on Dec. 22, 2018.
Christina and Ant—who is dad to daughter Amelie and son Archie with his first wife Louise Storey—welcomed their first child together, son Hudson, in 2019.
The couple were married for less than two years before announcing their separation in September 2020. Their divorce was finalized nine months later.
Since the split, Ant has moved on with actress Renée Zellweger.
Hudson London Anstead, Christina and Ant's Son
Christina and Ant welcomed their son on Sept. 6, 2019. At the time, the baby boy arrived weighing 7 pounds, 7 ounces and measured at 19.5 inches long.
Though they agreed on shared legal and physical custody of Hudson when their divorce was finalized in June 2021, Ant filed for full custody in April 2022, claiming in court documents that his ex spends roughly "9 full days" with their child each month.
The following December, the exes reached an agreement in which both would "continue to have joint legal and joint physical custody" of Hudson, according to court documents obtained by E! News.
Instagram/Heather Rae El Moussa
Heather Rae Young, Tarek's Second Wife
Tarek met the Selling Sunset star on the Fourth of July in 2019, when they were partying on boats that had docked next to each other at a marina in Newport Beach, Calif. Later that month, the pair were spotted kissing on a yacht and Tarek confirmed to E! News they were dating that August, saying, "I never thought I'd say this word again, but this beautiful young lady, Heather Rae, is my girlfriend, officially."
The couple got engaged in July 2020 and became husband and wife on Oct. 23, 2021, exchanging vows during a romantic outdoor ceremony near Santa Barbara, Calif.
Heather has often referred to herself as the "bonus mom" of Tarek's two older children, Taylor and Brayden. "I already feel like I have two kids," she previously explained to E! News. "I'm raising Tarek's babies, and we have them 50 percent of the time. I am such a good bonus mommy. I adore those kids. I raise them like they're mine."
Instagram/Heather Rae El Moussa
Tristan Jay El Moussa, Tarek and Heather's Son
Tarek and Heather welcomed their son on Jan. 31, 2023. At the time, the baby boy arrived weighing 7 pounds, 7 ounces.
He was named Tristan because "Tarek was supposed to be named Tristan," according to Heather, "and his parents ended up naming him Tarek."
His middle name is a nod to Heather's dad.
Josh Hall, Christina's Third Husband
After calling it quits with her second husband Ant, Christina began dating Josh in 2021. The pair went public with their relationship that July, with Christina revealing that they had been together for "a few solid months."
According to the Flip or Flop star, she met Josh, a licensed realtor, that spring at a time in her life when she "wasn't in a state of fear or fight-or-flight" and had "taken time off social, hired a spiritual coach and smoked a Bufo toad" to "reset" her brain.
Christina and Josh got engaged that September and tied the knot on Oct. 6, 2021.
Their actual wedding date wasn't known until Josh filed for divorce on July 15, 2024, citing irreconcilable differences as the reason for the split.
The pair finalized their divorce in August 2025.
Christina's Parents
Until the process of remodeling her childhood home unfolded on the July 11, 2024, episode of Christina on the Coast, she had kept her roots pretty private, mainly sharing glimpses of her parents as grandparents.
In 2019, she shared in an Instagram post that "we all sit together—my family and Tarek's family" when they watch Taylor perform at her school's annual Christmas concert.
"A couple people acknowledged how nice this is- I know there are a lot of divorced couples (including Tarek's mom and dad) who do this too and it's honestly easier for everyone," she wrote at the time. "Plus Taylor's face lights up when she sees us all in the same row supporting her."
Angelique El Moussa, Tarek's Sister
The older sister of Tarek, Angelique is the owner of Latitude 33 Hair Artistry in Anaheim, Calif. She purchased one of Tarek and Christina's flipped homes on an episode of Flip or Flop in 2014 and later filmed a digital series with her HGTV host bro in 2019.
Dominique El Moussa and Robert Carroll, Tarek's Mom and Stepdad
Tarek's mother Dominique is no longer with the Flipping 101 star's father, whose name he has never publicly shared. She is currently married to Robert, who describes the El Moussa matriarch as "the love of my life" on Instagram.
Tarek's Dad
Tarek has never shared his father's name, though in a November 2017 Facebook post he announced that his "old man" had turned 70 years old.
"The relationship between a father and his children is so important. I was lucky enough to have a supportive and motivating father that made me believe I could accomplish anything in the world," he captioned a picture of the family's birthday celebrations for the patriarch. "I can say that I wouldn't be where I am today without the support of my dad. I will take all the lessons I've learned from him and pass it on to my children."
In an interview with Country Living, Tarek said his father was "raised Catholic in the Middle East in Lebanon and then Egypt" and met his mother, who is from Belgium, in Europe as a teen.
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