Chip Gaines Reveals Why He Really Decided To Quit ‘Fixer Upper’ In New Memoir

Chip and Joanna Gaines shocked their millions of fans when they recently announced that Fixer Upper, their hit HGTV show, will be ending after the upcoming Season 5. The announcement brought up a lot of speculations as to why the couple has decided to put an end to their high-rating home renovation show.

Fans initially feared that the Fixer Upper couple’s marriage is on the rocks and that the two are heading for a divorce. Chip and Joanna immediately slammed such talks in their latest blog post, insisting that their marriage is stronger than ever. Moreover, divorce doesn’t seem a good enough reason for ending a mega-successful show. In fact, another HGTV couple, Christina and Tarek El Moussa of Flip Or Flop, have already parted ways and yet they still appear together in their show.

Now, it seems that fans may finally learn the truth behind Fixer Upper’s sudden ending, Business Insider reports. In his upcoming memoir, Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff, Chip Gaines is opening up about a certain “tweet revelation” that changed everything.

The DIY guy recounts getting a tweet from a customer at 2 a.m. about a certain order that hasn’t been delivered. This kept him up all night, and he knew he had to stop and catch his breath.

“Hey @chippergaines. It’s been 3 weeks, and I still haven’t gotten my wreath. What’s up?” reads the customer’s message for Chip Gaines.

On set the next day, Chip couldn’t concentrate. Instead of filming, Chip wanted to run to his Magnolia warehouse to tend to the shipping problem. At that moment, he knew he had to change something.

“Something shifted within me,” Chip Gaines wrote in his book.

“Suddenly filming the TV show looked like ‘the job’ that had seduced me into giving it my precious time that I had always promised would be reserved for my true loves, my family and my business. How had this side gig found its way to competing with the very things that mean more to me than anything else in the world?”

Of course, this “side gig” Chip Gaines is referring to is HGTV’s highest-rating show since it debuted in 2013. Fixer Upper also paved the way for Chip and Joanna’s Magnolia brand to expand into the empire it now is.

Magnolia Realty now includes multiple home furniture and accessories lines, bed and breakfast inns, an upcoming restaurant, book deals, and a recent partnership with Target. At the helm of all these are Chip and Joanna, who personally attend to their businesses. Naturally, a burnout is bound to happen at some point.

“These past several years have been such a mind-blowing season of life for us,” Gaines continues in the book. “They have also been a very real struggle.”

“It was really easy for us to feel like we could do it all when the show and the business were in the early stages. But the bigger things got — and they got big fast — the less energy we had to devote to all three [family, business, and TV show]. So much time was being allocated to filming that the details of the business were slipping.”

In the end, Chip knew he had to prioritize his family above everything. Next, he knew he had to choose Magnolia over Fixer Upper since this is the heart and soul of their brand to begin with. Chip and Joanna were in the real estate business long before HGTV even contacted them to do the show.

Despite leaving television for now, Chip and Joanna Gaines assured their fans that they will continue to work on home renovations and design. Fixer Upper Season 5 will premiere on HGTV in November. Chip’s memoir, Capital Gaines, will hit the bookstands on Oct. 17.

[Featured Image by Brian Ach/Invision/AP Images]