10 of Your Favorite HGTV Stars Reveal How They Were Discovered (2024)

With a hit TV show, a shop that people travel across the country to visit, and a brand-newbook, it's hard to imagine a time when Chip and Joanna weren't household names. But Chip actually started flipping houses back in college, and Joanna offered her help on the design sideafter they began dating.

In an interview with Hooked on Houses, Joanna explained that they were approached by a production company after one of their flips was featured on the popular blogDesign Mom."They contacted us through our website and the rest is history," she said. In fact, Joanna recentlyrevealed on the Today show that they almost didn't call back when the production companyfirst called with the offer,because Chip thought it was a scam!

The star of Income Property first started investing in real estate while he was still in college. "I bought a rental property with a friend of mine andit was profitable,"he told CountryLiving.com in a recentFacebook Live interview."We used our student loans to buy our first property so you could say there was lots of risk being taken there, but it paid off."

Scott continued buying properties, eventually becoming a licensed contractor when he was 26. "Right after I became a licensed contractor, a very closefriend of mine who worked in television called me up and said 'Scott I'm working on a show, we need someone to help finish this renovation, it's gone off the rails, can you help?"

At first Scott said he didn't become a contractor so he could display his skills on a "silly" TV show, but his friend convinced him to give it a try."It was fun, I got to know people in production," he said. "Eventually they sent a camera crew to follow me around and they were like, we need to do a show about what you do with these rental properties and bam, here we are after 10 years of doing income property."

In her new bookBetter Than New, Nicole explained that she first realized a production assistant for Magnetic Productions was attempting to contact her while clearing out her voice mail to prepare to make an offer on twoMinneapolis houses.

"He said he wanted to line up real estate experts who could go on camera for segments on a TV show," Nicole explained.She would later find out he was booking for Sweat Equity. "The message was two weeks old. Leave it to me not to check my messages. I called the guy back and, to my surprise, he told me to come in the next day."

But the meeting didn't exactly go as planned.Nicole stood out as more than just a realtor:"I told himthat my goal was to invest in the houses that no one else wanted,renovate them in a historic manner, and put them back on the market," she writes in her book.

Overall, Nicole says she thinks she was just in the right place at the right time.John Kitchener, the owner of the production company, was just starting out and looking for fresh talent to pitch to bigger networks. "Companies like his succeed only by throwing ideas at the network andseeing what sticks. I was determined to make the idea of Nicole Curtis, historic home renovator, stick," she writes.

You may recognizethe duobehind HGTV'sOpen Conceptfrom their popular blog Shanty2Chic. Long before their show debuted, these Texas-based sisters were self-made carpenters who create plans for customized furniture.

"We started building our own homes together about 8 years ago," explained Whitney to CountryLiving.com. "We were both on limited budgets and loved repurposing old pieces and giving them a new life. We starteddocumenting our projects along the way on our blogto help others do the same in their homes. That led to a love of tools, and furniture design. We began designing our own pieces and sharing the plans with our readers on our blog. It was so amazing to have the ability to fill an entire room with furniture for the same price you would pay for a single piece at a furniture store. One of our now producers was looking to buy a dining table for her family. Her friend suggested she look at our site and build it herself. She discovered us there, and asked if we had ever considered doing a show.That is how it all started."

And so far, the sister say they've most enjoyed the opportunity to help others:"Our favorite part of the journey with HGTV has been being able to transform peoples' lives by helping them create a real home.It was the most rewarding part of every transformation so far."

Unlike some of the network's other hosts, the Property Brothers were actually actors before they appeared on HGTV. According toGlamour, the twinsstarred on the Canadian series Breaker High,Drew was on Smallville, and Jonathan was on The X-Files.

Eventually, the brothers decided to go into real restate to avoid becoming "starving actors.""During university we did our very first property, ended up flipping it—before flipping was a trend or cool," Drew told Glamour. "We did ended up making about a $50,000 profit. We thought this was something, while still in college. We went back to school for construction and design, and our company exploded and we were approached to doProperty Brothers..."

The host of Secrets From aStylistactually got her own show by winning HGTV's Design Star. Emily first started off as an assistant working with different stylists in New York City and never imagined she'd be on TV.

When Emilyspotted a Craigslist ad for Design Star auditions, it was herhusband who convinced her to try out."The whole thing was totally nuts," Emilytold The Everygirl. "It was a 6-week adrenaline rush.5am – 12am everyday, quarantined from all contact with friends and family, competing every day for your dream job.All said and doneI do think thatI was the right person for the job (although my friends Dan and Casey could have taken it at any point), but manI still can't believeI won. I was pretty terrified and had wildly less confidence than I do now. It was an incredible experience that I'm obviously extremely glad I did. It totally changed my life, propelled me toward success, and gave me the validation to really make things happen."