Chip and Joanna Gaines are famous for two things: home improvement and parenthood. The couple share five kids together, and it’s constantly rumored to have another on the way. Chip has even said he’d possibly like more, but that hasn’t always been the case.
There might not be a bigger family man on TV than Chip Gaines, but before he met Joanna, it was a totally different story. “I dated girls whose goal in life was to get married and have kids,” the reality star tells People, continuing, “They had it all planned out, but I was too selfish. It was about me and what I wanted to do, and I didn’t have anything tying me down.”
“I really wasn’t that guy,” Chip says about people a family man in his twenties. Then he met Joanna and things changed as much as one of their famous fixer-uppers. “It felt like there was this real transition. I matured and grew up,” and he realized, “This is going to work.” He continues, “When I thought about the idea of being an 80-year-old man sitting on a rocking chair with my beautiful wife, and for she and I to have made it, I got really excited.”
Chip Gaines embraced fatherhood
Working is an understatement. The couple has grown their contracting and decorating business into a powerhouse brand and have helped transform parts of their hometown of Waco, Texas. They also have the kind of family life that many dream of. Their kids even make occasional appearances on their show Fixer Upper and will almost certainly appear on their upcoming Magnolia Network, scheduled to launch this fall.
Chip’s onscreen persona is occasionally one of suspended adolescence, but he gives most of the credit for their family’s happiness to Joanna. While it might be Joanna pumping the brakes on having more kids, Chip Gaines says, “I tell my kids this a lot. She’s the one that makes this whole thing go around.”
Still, as happy as the family is, the tabloids still take shots at the couple. In October, the Globe alleged Chip and Joanna Gaines were suffering marriage problems due to the stress of their new hotel project in Waco. The story was false, and Gossip Cop corrected it at the time. In addition to a mountain of evidence that the project was going fine, nothing about our reporting has been disputing in the months since. The story was simply false.
Still, later that same month, In Touch purported Joanna was pregnant with their sixth child. The story was inaccurate for a number of reasons — most notably Joanna herself saying she wasn’t committed to having more children in an interview with Today just days before. Additionally, Gossip Cop checked with the couple’s rep, who told us in no uncertain terms the story was false. “There is absolutely zero truth to that rumor. And had someone from In Touch attempted to reach out for confirmation or comment in the first place, I would’ve told them the same thing,” said their spokesperson.