From HGTV Star to Custody Battle: Nicole Curtis Faces Fresh Drama

It’s been rough going for Nicole Curtis lately. Just months after her firing from HGTV in February for using a racial slur during filming on“Rehab Addict,”the former home renovation star is now facing a custody battle that threatens to reshape her relationship with her 10-year-old son, Harper.

Her ex, Shane Maguire, has filed court documents seeking to overhaul their current custody arrangement. Instead of the frequent exchanges they’ve been doing, Shane wants a 50-50 split schedule—one week with him, one week with Nicole. His reasoning? He claims the current setup is creating instability and exposing Harper to ongoing parental conflict, the kind of tension that no kid should have to navigate.

According to the filing, Shane paints a picture of escalating friction. He alleges that Nicole has a pattern of creating conflict during custody exchanges, even when there’s nothing substantive to fight about. He specifically mentions multiple instances where exchanges at or around school have blown up into contentious moments in Harper’s presence. In one incident, Shane claims he was volunteering when Nicole showed up and turned what should have been a positive situation into an uncomfortable scene. That kind of tension doesn’t just disappear—it sticks with kids.

There’s another layer here worth noting: Shane moved from Michigan to California after Nicole claimed she needed to be there for work reasons. But his court papers suggest that reasoning didn’t hold up. Nicole apparently still travels frequently for her job, leaving the relocation decision looking pretty questionable in hindsight. It’s a detail that underscores how complicated shared custody can get when life circumstances keep shifting.

What Shane’s asking for with this schedule change is more structure and stability for Harper—less back-and-forth chaos, more predictability. Whether the court agrees remains to be seen. What’s clear is that for Nicole, the professional fallout from her February firing is now bleeding into her personal life in ways that could have real consequences for her custody of her son.