Chip and Joanna Gaines are the smiling faces of American dwelling renovation and the last word husband-and-wife duo who turned shiplap and barn doorways into a way of life empire.

Nevertheless, behind their way of life model Magnolia’s shiny floor, the couple faces storms of criticism, marital pressure, and questions on religion that might shake their $50 million fortune. Their rigorously crafted empire has by no means felt extra fragile.

From the skin, Chip and Joanna appear untouchable.

Their Magnolia model stretches throughout books, a TV community, furnishings traces, retail outlets, and even a resort.

But insiders say the couple usually grapple with the place their marriage ends and enterprise begins.

“They’ve all the time struggled with the road between enterprise and private relationship,” an insider revealed to the Day by day Mail, including that whereas the couple’s on-screen chemistry is plain, “they put on on one another’s nerves, and generally that bubbles over.”

“They get very chilly in direction of one another. They do not have poker faces. I’ve seen that firsthand,” the supply added.

This stress, hardly ever glimpsed by the general public, provides a human wrinkle to their in any other case polished empire.

The couple’s latest Magnolia Community actuality experiment, “Again to the Frontier,” positioned trendy households in Eighteen Eighties-style homesteads. Among the many contestants had been Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs, a same-sex couple elevating twin sons.

Nearly immediately, critics pounced. Some conservative Christian followers accused Chip and Joanna of betraying their values, calling the choice “a PR nightmare.” Others branded them “promote outs” who caved to “woke” pressures.

Most notably, Reverend Franklin Graham weighed in with a submit on X, writing, “I hope this is not true, however I learn immediately that Chip and Joanna Gaines are that includes a homosexual couple of their new collection.”

He added, “Whether it is true, it is vitally disappointing. Whereas we’re to like folks, we must always love them sufficient to inform them the reality of God’s Phrase. His Phrase is absolute reality. God loves us, and His design for marriage is between one man and one girl. Selling one thing that God defines as sin is in itself sin.”

As a substitute of retreating, Chip fired again in one other X submit that learn, “Discuss, ask [questions], hear… possibly even study. An excessive amount of to ask of recent American Christian tradition. Decide 1st, perceive later/by no means. It is a unhappy Sunday when ‘non believers’ have by no means been confronted with hate or vitriol till they’re launched to a contemporary American Christian.”

His phrases marked one of many uncommon occasions the Gaineses publicly distanced themselves from the conservative Christian base that helped launch their careers.

Regardless of the backlash, trade insiders insist the Gaineses have lengthy believed in inclusivity, even when it clashes with their Bible Belt roots.

One supply instructed the New York Put up that conventional evangelicals noticed the Gaineses transfer as a sellout, imagining “some LA director instructed them to place this homosexual couple in and so they did it for the cash.”

Nonetheless, these near the couple insist they continue to be agency of their beliefs, noting, “They’ve by no means been involved with what folks suppose in that capability – they imagine in what’s proper. They imagine in what they imagine in. For those who’re traditional-minded and you do not imagine in that, then that is your prerogative.”

Chip and Joanna’s story began in Waco, Texas, again in 2001, when she was working at her father’s tire store. Chip walked in to repair his brakes and walked out with greater than automotive repairs on his thoughts.

They married in 2003, raised 5 kids, and launched Magnolia Market the identical 12 months.

From flipping homes to creating “Fixer Higher”’s signature trendy farmhouse type, the Gaineses turned a family title. By 2015, Magnolia Market on the Silos drew over one million guests yearly. Immediately, it’s a bustling attraction with outlets, eating places, and even a whiffle ball area.

Their empire expanded with the launch of Magnolia Community in 2021, that includes exhibits like “Magnolia Desk” and way of life programming obtainable on HBO Max and Discovery+.

Trip leases, a boutique resort, bestselling cookbooks, and a Goal partnership solely cemented their dominance.

But the larger the empire, the heavier the stress on their marriage.