Inside Chip and Joanna Gaines' same sex couple scandal – and whether the ‘Fixer Upper' brand will survive it
The home renovation superstars sparked backlash for featuring a gay couple on their new reality show 'Back to the Frontier.' Conservative Christian leaders like Reverend Franklin Graham – son of late star evangelist Billy Graham – and podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey both slammed their decision, with Graham calling the casting 'very disappointing.'
Sources told The Post Chip and Joanna have a tough position to negotiate – satisfying the demands of an increasingly diverse audience across the US and growing their network while staying true to their faith and fanbase.
9 Home renovation superstars Chip and Joanna Gaines sparked backlash for featuring a gay couple on their new reality show 'Back to the Frontier.'
FilmMagic
Graham was clear in his stance, writing: 'His Word is absolute truth. God loves us, and His design for marriage is between one man and one woman.'
This prompted Chip to pour gasoline on the controversy by tweeting: 'The way of 'modern American Christian culture' is 'Judge 1st, understand later/never.' '
The remark was seen as a rebuke of conservative Christians, who claim the 'Fixer Upper' duo for their own.
A source close to Chip and Joanna – who cast married couple Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs and their 10-year-old twin sons on 'Back to the Frontier' – says they have long been inclusive people.
9 Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs with their sons, who were featured on Magnolia Network's 'Back to the Frontier.' Sources told The Post Chip and Joanna have a tough position to negotiate – satisfying the demands of an increasingly diverse audience across the US and growing their network, but also staying true to their faith and fanbase.
2_dallas_dads/Instagram
9 Conservative Christian leaders like Reverend Franklin Graham (pictured) and podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey both slammed Chip and Joanna Gaines for the decision to feature a gay couple on their show.
Ron Sachs – CNP for NY Post
'It's uncomfortable for a super traditional audience to come to terms with … [Chip and Joanna] don't live their life the way a traditional conservative evangelical population does,' the source told The Post.
'They've never been concerned with what people think in that capacity – they believe in what's right.
'They believe in what they believe in, if you're traditional minded and you don't believe in that, then that's your prerogative.'
The TV couple – parents to five children ranging between 20 and seven in age – are active members of the traditionally conservative Antioch Community Church of Waco.
9 Graham was clear in his stance, speaking for the evangelical Christians who make up a big part of Chip and Joanne's fanbase.
@Franklin_Graham/X
9 Chip poured gasoline on the brewing controversy with his incendiary Tweet.
@chipgaines/X
A source close to the church says this leads evangelical Christians to feel the couple are 'theirs.'
'It's the bible belt — you have a lot of conservatives, a lot of religious people. They see it as [Chip and Joanna] sold out. [Like] some LA director told them to put this gay couple in and they did it for the money,' the second source, who also once worked with the couple, speculated.
However, the source also added Antioch would have no problem with the casting.
'They're a pretty progressive church. They wouldn't condemn them for having a gay couple on their show.'
9 Married couple Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs and their 10-year-old twin sons on 'Back to the Frontier,' the show which has sparked all the backlash.
2_dallas_dads/Instagram
Magnolia takes Waco
Chip and Joanna ricocheted to stardom with their home renovation HGTV show, 'Fixer Upper,' in 2014. It followed the pair's home renovation and redecoration business centered around Waco, Texas, where they turned run-down homes into souped-up modern living spaces.
The pair soon built an empire – including a five-acre shopping complex, Magnolia Market, the Magnolia Press coffee shop, the Silos Baking Co. bakery and Magnolia Table restaurant. It catapulted the small Texas town into one of the state's top tourist destinations almost overnight.
9 Over the years, people have noticed Chip and Joanna's lack of diversity in their shows and criticized them for failing to feature LGBTQ+ couples previously.
Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery
'The only thing people knew Waco for was Baylor University and David Koresh and the Branch Davidians [cult]. Chip and Joanna brought another positive aspect to Waco,' one source told The Post, although they noted success also brought a downside to the small town.
'There were more and more tourists, people got more and annoyed at the traffic. It was less convenient. [But] most people still have positive feelings about them,' the source added.
After launching their lifestyle brand including books, apparel, furniture and design, the pair pulled the plug on 'Fixer Upper' with HGTV in 2017.
9 '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. That's the stuff that keeps me up,' Joanna Gaines told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021.
Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images
The following year, they teamed up with Discovery Inc., to start their own network, born and bred in their central Texas town. They have since launched a string of shows such as 'Fixer Upper: Welcome Home', 'Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse' and 'Fixer Upper: The Hotel.'
However, a third source told The Post they haven't hit the same stride and created a blockbuster like their first show.
'Their network hasn't been the explosive success Discovery hoped for. None of the shows has been a breakout,' a source noted.
Fans and Faith
Over the years, people have noticed Chip and Joanna's lack of diversity in their shows and criticized them for failing to feature LGBTQ+ couples, something they have previously defended against.
'Sometimes I'm like, 'Can I just make a statement?' Joanna told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021.
9 The first industry source says the backlash faced over the casting on the 'Back to the Frontier' show isn't going to tear down the empire Chip and Joanna Gaines have built.
'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.'
However, sources say their current spat isn't going to tear down the empire they've built.
'How they're dealing with the backlash? You have two people who feel proud to stand on what they actually believe in. It's not keeping them up at night,' the industry source added.
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When I wrote the first edition of this book, I said it was more than 50 percent. Now I think it's over 70 percent, maybe as high as 80 percent likely that we are inside a video game. Rizwan Virk at a 2017 event for Play Labs, an MIT accelerator program that he founded and ran. MIT How does this shape your worldview? I have to explain what I call the NPC ('non-player character') versus RPG ('role-playing game') flavors of the simulation hypothesis. In the NPC version, everyone is just AI running on a computer, and that's it. As soon as the game is over or it's shut down, that character no longer exists, that world no longer exists. I think when most academics talk about the simulation hypothesis, that's what they're talking about. Advertisement At the other end of the spectrum is the RPG version. This is closer to what was depicted in the movie 'The Matrix.' In that version, you are a player that exists outside of the game, and inside the game you have an avatar or a player character. And that would be us — our avatars would be our bodies inside the simulation. I think you reach very different conclusions depending on where you end up on this axis. In RPG video games, you choose your particular character that you're going to play and you choose a particular storyline. You still are free to make decisions along that storyline that will affect the game. So when something happens in my life that's difficult, like a physical difficulty or financial or other difficulties, I think of it as a kind of quest: 'OK, this is a more difficult quest or achievement. Let me see if I can get through it.' In what other ways does this play out for you? There is this idea in quantum physics of a multiverse, where there are different possibilities and we're trying them out in different universes. There's not a good understanding of exactly how that would work in a physical universe. 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