{"id":2043724,"date":"2025-09-23T13:50:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T13:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2043724"},"modified":"2025-09-23T13:50:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T13:50:02","slug":"hgtvs-brandon-hatmaker-fires-back-at-ex-wife-jens-cheating-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/hgtvs-brandon-hatmaker-fires-back-at-ex-wife-jens-cheating-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"HGTV\u2019s Brandon Hatmaker Fires Back at Ex-Wife Jen\u2019s Cheating Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jen Hatmaker<\/a>\u2018s new memoir, Awake<\/em>, is creating headlines with its discussion about the breakdown of her marriage, and now her ex-husband, Brandon Hatmaker, is sharing his side of the story.<\/p>\n

As reported earlier this week,<\/a> according to the celebrity.land<\/em><\/a>, Jen wrote in her book that on July 11, 2020, at 2:30 a.m., she woke up to the sound of Brandon whispering on the phone to another woman. She said he smelled of booze, and before he drifted off to sleep, he whispered, \u201cI just can\u2019t quit you.\u201d<\/p>\n

That moment was \u201cthe end of my life as I [knew] it\u201d Jen added, noting that she kicked Brandon out of the house the next morning, effectively bringing an end to their 26-year marriage. The former couple married in 1993 and went on to welcome five children, two of whom were adopted from Ethiopia. They founded the evangelical Austin New Church in Texas in 2008 and hosted the HGTV series\u00a0My Big Family Renovation<\/em>\u00a0in 2014.<\/p>\n

On Monday (September 22), Brandon posted a lengthy response on Substack<\/a>, sharing his side of the story, as well as making it clear that his current wife, Tina, is not the woman he had an affair with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lowest moment of my life was my very public affair five years ago. I caused so much pain and I brought so much humiliation into the lives of people that I loved,\u201d Brandon wrote. \u201cIt was the culmination of a three-year personal spiral in which I had lost my anchor, felt no hope, and was the loneliest I\u2019ve ever been in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cWhile that was the lowest moment of my life, a very close second, is having to relive it today. Even harder, to watch others who I love \u2013 because of my failures \u2013 having to do the same. I\u2019ve owned my mistakes, I\u2019ve made amends, I continue to do the work, I\u2019ve worked hard to restore relationships, and I\u2019ve started over.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Brandon and Jen Hatmaker<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brandon and Jen Hatmaker; Jen Hatmaker Facebook<\/p>\n

Brandon said his post isn\u2019t about making \u201cexcuses\u201d but simply to \u201cadd context to a handful of areas where the vast majority, and nearly every new follower, is missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no excuses. Nothing can make this wrong a right. But I do hope it to be helpful if some of you find yourself in my story. Maybe it will save you some heartbreak,\u201d he stated. \u201cThe truth is that people in a healthy marriage don\u2019t just wake up one day and decide to have an affair. I didn\u2019t fall out of love overnight. Our relationship was coming to a slow and painful ending. And I privately mourned the death of our marriage years before our divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that \u201cJen has every right to share her piece of the story,\u201d but noted that \u201cthere are some truths left out that paint a false narrative on topics that are truly important to me. I\u2019m not saying what she wrote is untrue. I\u2019m saying that what\u2019s left unsaid isn\u2019t her responsibility to tell. The only one who can do that, is me.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing Brandon wanted to clear up was his relationship with his children. He wanted readers to know he didn\u2019t abandon five young children at the time of the affair.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be clear, at the time of our divorce we had three adult kids and two teenagers,\u201d he said. \u201cI know that I forever changed their story, but I was always available, was constantly engaged, and always supported them\u2026 and still do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also disputed being a pastor at the time of the affair, claiming, \u201cIt had been years since I had been a pastor. In three years time, I had become a very broken and lost man who had given up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandon also responded to claims that he was \u201ccold\u201d or \u201cuncaring\u201d after the affair was exposed, writing, \u201cOn the early morning everything happened, Jen gave me the ultimatum to share the entire truth right in that moment, I just remember not wanting to say anything that I couldn\u2019t unsay, so I left. After a day or two we sat down and I shared everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also revealed it was Jen who told him, \u201c\u2018There is no path back to reconnection.\u201d\u2018<\/p>\n

\u201cThat closed the book for me,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom that moment on my focus was my kids and my future. Not long after that I met Tina. She may have saved my life. Not figuratively, but literally. That\u2019s another story I hope to share one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandon also reiterated that \u201cin no way was Tina involved or a part of my divorce in 2020,\u201d noting, \u201cJen verifies this in her book. To be clear, Tina and I had never met until after the divorce was filed. This was also after Jen told me that for her \u2018there was no path back to reconnection.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the latest entertainment news on TV Insider<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jen Hatmaker\u2018s new memoir, Awake, is creating headlines with its discussion about the breakdown of her marriage, and now her ex-husband, Brandon Hatmaker, is sharing his side of the story. As reported earlier this week, according to the celebrity.land, Jen wrote in her book that on July 11, 2020, at 2:30 a.m., she woke up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2043725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[377477,377476,352027],"class_list":["post-2043724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-brandon-hatmaker","tag-jen-hatmaker","tag-new-york-post"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/HGTVs-Brandon-Hatmaker-Fires-Back-at-Ex-Wife-Jens-Cheating-Claims.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2043724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2043725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2043724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2043724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2043724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}