Chip and Joanna Gaines shocked their millions of fans when they announced that they were ending their hugely popular HGTV show Fixer Upper last month.
But sources now say that the house-flipping couple actually quit the show to negotiate a better contract.
HGTV is owned by Scripps, which is in the process of being sold to Discovery Communications.
Once that sale is finalized, insiders say the couple hope Discovery will lure them back to the network with a better offer.
TV insiders say Chip and Joanna Gaines quit their TV show, Fixer Upper, to negotiate a better contract
An HGTV network insider explained to Page Six TV that Scripps has had ‘horrible contracts’ for talent ever since they made Rachel Ray into a star.
When they first signed Ray, they lost out on a lot of money because they didn’t imagine her going on to start a magazine, launch her own product lines, get endorsement deals, or write bestselling books.
Since then, Scripps contracts have been more restrictive.
‘While Food Network turned Rachael Ray into a star, she made tens of millions and Scripps got none of it. After Rachael, they made sure no talent deal would ever put them in that situation again. Since the Gaineses were relatively unknown when they started, they signed the general Scripps talent contract,’ the insider said.
The source explained that Scripps talent contacts are ‘very restrictive’ and make sure that the company gets a percentage of everything their stars make.
‘The talent can’t do anything without their approval — any appearance, any publicity, any endorsement, any product — you have to ask them for permission. It is awful.
‘And on top of that, Scripps takes a big percentage of everything you make — books, appearances, endorsements, products. If you make money, they take most of the money,’ the source said.
Last month, the couple said in a statement that the fifth season of Fixer Upper would be their last. The fifth season premieres next month
Once Chip and Joanna became more famous, the insider says that HGTV made some concessions on their contract – like not taking a percentage of their Target collection. But they were still forced ‘to shoot long days’ and ‘just work their butts off’ to promote the show.
‘So they are using this end of their contract as a total renegotiation to get the deal they really want: more money, less work, more control,’ the source said. ‘The timing of Discovery buying Scripps worked well in their favor. With Discovery hopefully now about to own Scripps, they are rolling the dice thinking the new owners will come running after them and give them the deal they really want.’
However, it will likely take some time before that deal can be arranged. The Scripps acquisition is still being vetted by the FTC, so Discovery executives won’t be able to approach Scripps talent until early next year at the earliest.
‘Discovery will surely go after Chip and Joanna, once the deal is cleared, because of their huge popularity. Discovery deals are traditionally much more generous to the talent, and the network can turn them into international stars, like Discovery did with “Cake Boss,”‘ one TV insider said.
Spokesman for HGTV and the Gaines’ both denied the Page Six report.
Meanwhile, reviews of Chip’s new memoir Capital Gaines reveal a passage from the book details why he decided to quit the show.
In the book, Chip speaks about getting a tweet from a dissatisfied customer at 2am that ‘changed everything’.
The couple said they needed to take a break to focus on their business and their family
The tweet read: ‘Hey @chippergaines,’ the customer wrote. ‘It’s been 3 weeks, and I still haven’t gotten my wreath. What’s up?!’
Chip says he knew he was spread too thin when he realized he wouldn’t be able to rectify the customer’s order immediately.
‘I tried to shake it off, knowing that I couldn’t do anything about it then and that it would have to wait until morning,’ Gaines writes in ‘Capital Gaines.’ ‘No luck. I was up all night dwelling on it.’
In Chip’s upcoming memoir, Capital Gaines, he speaks about how a dissatisfied customer’s tweet made him want to quit the show
The next day, he was filming the show and still couldn’t forget about the customer’s issue.
‘Who else but me should be figuring out what was ailing my growing business, and who else other than me should be ensuring that we moved beyond each and every one of these mistakes?’ he writes.
He said that tweet ‘something shifted within me. 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?’
Chip says that he ‘dreams of the day Jo and I are chairmen of the board and not actually involved in the day-to-day operations’ of their businesses, but they’re not at that point yet.
The fifth season of Fixer Upper, which premieres next month, will be the Gaines’ last, they said in a statement late last month.
It is the highest-rated show on HGTV, and the biggest ad revenue generator. It has been on the air since May 2013.
Capital Gaines is out October 17.