When Tarek El Moussa jumped over the fence and into the woods on the night of his argument with Christina Hall, he was in search of a physical outlet for his emotions. “I craved some exercise,” he wrote in his 2024 book, “Flip Your Life,” in which he offered details of the incident. He had recently purchased mountain bikes online and had been wanting to check out the trails before they arrived. After the fight with Hall, he thought he could use that as an opportunity for them both to have space to cool off.
He grabbed a pistol for protection against wildlife. When he saw the helicopter, he never imagined it was for him — he thought there might have been a wildfire or another emergency nearby. What happened next turned his life upside-down. “A police officer leaning out of the helicopter pointed a rifle at me,” he detailed. He was soon surrounded by many others. “Suddenly, off-road police vehicles roared up, and dozens of officers leaped out with their guns drawn.”
El Moussa spent the next several hours in handcuffs. “That was the very last time we were together as a family: with Christina walking down the driveway, crying, and me sitting there in handcuffs,” he detailed. El Moussa was in disbelief. “It got really blown out of proportion,” he said on “Today” in 2017 (via People). But even if he thinks the episode in itself was unnecessary, he knows Hall had good reasons for the split.
