Fixer Upper’s Chip and Joanna Gaines Are Divorcing-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Chip and Joanna Gaines are divorcing after the latest season of their reality show, “Fixer Upper,” concludes on the HGTV network.
The Truth:
A misleading headline is behind false reports that Chip and Joanna Gaines are divorcing after the latest season of their hit reality show “Fixer Upper” ends.
Rumors about a Chip and Joanna Gaines break-up appear to stem from the headline of a story posted by the celebrity site Starcasm in March 2017. An archived headline of a post about the couple appears in the search engine results as Fixer Upper couple divorce: Are Chip and Joanna finished?”
The story that corresponds with the post about a Chip and Joanna Gaines divorce, however, makes no mention of the couple breaking up. Instead, it’s a story about the couple planning for the future as the fourth season of their hit reality show came to a close. The post begins:
The fourth season of HGTV powerhouse Fixer Upper–also the show’s most successful–comes to a close tonight with a nod to Joanna and Chip’s next big project. The duo recently announced Fixer Upper: Behind the Design, a brand-new spinoff featuring “an in-depth look” at Joanna’s creative process and the design choices she makes for each new Fixer Upperhome.
The network’s push makes it clear that Behind the Design isn’t just for Fixer Upper die-hards; rather, it’s an effort to focus more specifically on the little details that go into crafting a house, instead of just the broad strokes of a top-to-bottom demo and reno. It’s the “perfect series,” the network promises, “for viewers who want to know how Joanna Gaines creates her signature home designs and how it all comes together so perfectly—shiplap and all.”
Sometimes article headlines are intentionally misleading in an effort to draw readers in with bold, controversial claims that aren’t supported by the body of the article in any way. Other times, the mistake results from online editors updating an earlier post and forgetting to change the original headline. It’s not clear which is the case here, but there weren’t any credible reports of Chip and Joanna Gaines getting divorced by July 2017.
The claim is similar to an earlier rumor that we investigated (and found to be false) that Joanna Gaines was leaving “Fixer Upper.” That claim appeared to be a misunderstanding about a spinoff of the of hit reality show that Joanna Gaines would star in beginning in fall 2017 in addition to the original Fixer Upper show.