For many viewers, competing on an HGTV reality show might seem like a dream opportunity, but for one Connecticut couple, that experience unfolded amid a much darker reality that they kept hidden from the cameras.
Steven and Angelina Jacobs, who competed on Season 5 of HGTV’s “Battle on the Beach,” have revealed that, even as they were busy renovating a beach house in South Carolina, behind the scenes, they were experiencing homelessness.
The couple, who have been married for 11 years and share four children, opened up about the heartbreaking situation in an interview with The Hour, explaining why they kept tight-lipped about their living circumstances as they balanced work, family responsibilities, and the demands of reality television.
Viewers met the couple on the latest season of the hit HGTV series, which challenges contestants to transform rundown beachfront properties in hopes of increasing their value and winning a cash prize.
During the show, the duo shared some insight into just how significant a win would be for them—telling the cameras that a $3,000 prize they secured after winning the first challenge of the series would help to change their family’s fortunes.
“This win is very important because we’ve been going through our own situation, you know, from sleeping on other people’s couches,” Angelina said at the time. “This money would literally help us be more comfortable.”
“This opportunity [is] one in a million,” her husband added. “We need to keep this winning momentum going.”
While the couple alluded to their private struggles, viewers had no idea the extent of their living situation—which they have now revealed in full, telling The Hour that they were forced to store all of their belongings in a U-Haul truck while sleeping on their friends’ couches.
“We were driving back and forth to jobs. We didn’t tell nobody. … We kept it to ourselves and just kept on going, kept on saving the money,” Angelina admitted.
Despite the uncertainty, they remained focused on building a better future for their family and pursuing opportunities that could help them reach that goal.
What began as a self-taught passion for home improvement evolved into a full-fledged business, with the couple tackling everything from remodeling projects to complete renovations, much of which is documented on the Facebook page for Angelina’s company, She Buildz Things.
However, the duo’s appearance on “Battle on the Beach” marked a major milestone in their journey, bringing their talents to a national audience while they quietly navigated challenges away from the spotlight.
It is currently not known how Angelina and Steven performed overall—with episodes from Season 5 still rolling out on HGTV, where the latest installment will be shown on June 22. But they admitted to The Hour that their struggles with homelessness continued for a month after the cameras stopped rolling and they returned to their home state.
But in recent weeks, their story has taken a much more positive turn, with the Jacobses revealing that they found an apartment in Waterbury, CT, in May, where they are now living with their family.
Fans of the HGTV series will have to wait to see how their fortunes unfold on screen however, as the series continues to capture the drama while the contestants duke it out for the $50,000 final jackpot.
Steven and Angelina, who are being mentored on the show by “Renovation Resort” star Sarah Baeumler, are going head to head in the battle against two other teams: host Ty Pennington’s contenders are Michelle and Sydney, a mother-daughter duo from Nebraska, while “100 Day Dream Home” star Mika Kleinschmidt teams up with Josiah and Anna, a young married couple from Maryland.
Each of the teams started the project with $100,000 to spend on their desired renovations, with each week’s challenge offering them the opportunity to win $3,000—or double that money and add it to the overall jackpot.
Host Pennington previously shed some light on the emotional journey that unfolded for both the renovation mentors and their contestants this season, telling Realtor.com® that there were multiple “breakdowns” behind the scenes during filming.
“There’s so many breakdowns with my team that I thought we should actually design a crying room that you could, while you were on vacation, just go in there and just cry and scream,” he said.
The pressure also got the best of Steven and Angelina’s mentor Baeumler, who recalled the moment she reached a breaking point during production.
“I personally had a bit of a breakdown filming ‘Battle on the Beach’ where I needed to bring Ty and Mika aside and just sort of unload a little bit on them and take from Ty his experience of being a mentor,” she said, admitting that she sought out her fellow hosts to ask for their help in navigating how to best work with the couple.
“I remember I stood on the beach with Mika and Ty, and I’m like, ‘Help, I don’t know how to navigate this. I need some advice. I need some guidance … [on] where to push back and when to sort of say, Hey, I think you’re going in the wrong direction. Can we pull this back before it’s too late?’ Because I sort of sat back and was like, ‘This is their decision. I am here to support and guide them,’ and it just started to take its toll.”
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