Former HGTV Star Jen Hatmaker Reveals Shocking Way She Found Out Her Husband Was Having an Affair

Jen Hatmaker is pulling back the curtain on the events that led to the end of her 26-year marriage with ex Brandon Hatmaker. 

The former HGTV star — who hosted My Big Family Renovation alongside her ex-husband for one season in 2014 — gets vulnerable about the moment she says she discovered Brandon was cheating on her in her new memoir Awake (out Tuesday, Sept. 23).

She sets the scene by writing, “at 2:30 a.m., on July 11, 2020,” she was woken up out of a “dead sleep” to hear her husband at the time whispering something on his phone, per an audio excerpt from the book shared with PEOPLE.

“I hear five whispered words not meant for me: ‘I just can’t quit you.’ My husband of 26 years is voice-texting his girlfriend next to me in our bed. It is the end of my life as I know it,” she claims in the book.

She then documents the “chaos” she endured in the next four hours after that, including the “trail of betrayal” she uncovered while looking through his computer. “An entire other life. My body is frozen. I can’t even cry. My whole world is slipping away click by click.”

The mom of five says her kids were upstairs sleeping while this was all happening, “unaware that their story has just split in half.”

She then walks her readers through the process of telling her husband to “pack his s— and get out” at 6:30 a.m., and how it was the “last night he ever spends at our house.”

By 7 a.m., after texting her parents and siblings that she needed them, everyone gathered at her mom’s house to help her through the “crisis” she now had to face, she writes.

During a Sept. 17 appearance on CBS Mornings, the HGTV alum, who now hosts a podcast called For The Love, noted that while it was a “painful” experience for her to go through, she tried to keep her children out of this section of her memoir as best she could for one very important reason. 

“I wanted to keep the majority of their story behind the firewall. They were 14 to 22 when this happened, and I have a public life,” Jen explained. “We were already in the public eye, and so I did not need to drag their experience into this story.”

The former couple and their children starred on HGTV’s My Big Family Renovation for one season together. The 2014 series documented their renovation of the 1908 farmhouse they purchased in Buda, Texas, to better accommodate their family of seven. 

In response to PEOPLE’s request for comment, a representative from HGTV said the network does not comment on the personal lives of their talent. 

Ahead of the release of his ex-wife’s upcoming book, Brandon posted a lengthy response on his Substack on Monday, Sept. 22 in which he shares his perspective on some of the events that led to his and Jen’s divorce. 

He acknowledges that his “very public affair” inflicted so much “pain and humiliation,” adding, “I brought so much confusion into the lives of many people that I loved,” he wrote. 

He notes that while “Jen has every right to share her piece of the story,” he also insists he tried to make up for the mistakes he’d made. 

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“While that was the lowest moment of my life, a very close second, is having to relive it today. Even harder, to watch others who I love, having to do the same. I’ve owned my mistakes, I’ve made amends, I continue to do the work, I’ve worked hard to restore relationships, and I’ve started over.”

He adds, “I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to have an affair. I didn’t fall out of love overnight. Our love was coming to a slow and painful ending. And I privately mourned the death of our marriage years before our divorce.”

Both Brandon and Jen have moved on since their split. Brandon is remarried to his new wife Tina, while Jen is in a relationship with author Tyler Merritt. 

Awake will hit shelves on Sept. 23, 2025 and is available now for preorder, wherever books are sold.