Weird Things About HGTV Star Jonathan Scott's Relationship With Zooey Deschanel
If the bangs are the curtains to the soul, celebrity contractor Jonathan Scott peeped behind Zooey Deschanel's thick fringe and saw a pair of windows that he wouldn't dare rip out and replace. There's no doubt that the "Property Brothers" star and the actor are deeply in love, but there are some details about their relationship that are almost as strange as the above analogy. Before Deschanel began building a life with Scott, she was married to somebody else. Deschanel and movie producer Jacob Pechenik announced that they had split in September 2019, and just a week later, People confirmed that the "New Girl" star and Scott were dating. While the timeline seemed a little sus, Pechenik assured everyone that there was no funny business going on.
"Everything is amicable," he clarified to Us Weekly, adding that he and Deschanel were still actively co-parenting their two kids. The actor was so smitten with her new guy that she couldn't stop dropping the same adjective to describe him. "I can't believe he's so nice. He's just the nicest person. You know people just aren't that nice, generally. He's just so nice. We've been together over three years and he's still that nice. He goes over and fixes stuff at my parents' house. He's so nice," she gushed on "The Drew Barrymore Show." It might seem odd that Scott has turned Deschanel into a broken record, but it also makes sense — their first meeting was a musical one, after all.
Jonathan Scott flirted way too much on Carpool Karaoke
Jonathan Scott and Zooey Deschanel first met while filming an episode of "Carpool Karaoke," so their meet-cute was appropriately adorkable. Zooey also unknowingly played matchmaker for herself. She and her sister, Emily Deschanel, were invited to appear on the show together and knew ahead of time that they were going to be sharing their car with two other celebs. As the actor told ET, she was allowed to pick their co-passengers from a few different options, recalling, "When they said the Property Brothers and the Deschanel sisters, I was like, 'That's funny. I like the idea."
After the foursome sang a mashup of the holiday song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and the Britney Spears classic "...Baby One More Time," Zooey learned that she and Jonathan had something in common, thanks to his twin brother Drew Scott: They were both the "annoying" sibling. Jonathan later acknowledged to ET that he found it impossible to hide his attraction to Zooey, much to the producers' frustration. "They said that I was flirting so bad that they had to edit down the cut," he confessed. Drew, meanwhile, professed that he could totally tell that his brother was into Zooey at the time.
Emily, on the other hand, was concerned that she would be unable to tell the Property Bros apart, which was thankfully no issue for her sister. "I'm like, 'They look so different,'" Zooey reasoned during an appearance on "Live with Kelly and Ryan." Naturally, that she could easily tell the identical twins apart was a good sign for Jonathan.
Zooey Deschanel thought she got ghosted
Jonathan Scott and Zooey Deschanel's relationship was text-based at first, so the HGTV star probably should have let her know in advance that he was about to be off the grid when they were just getting to know each other. The "Elf" star feared that Scott had ghosted her when she didn't hear back from him for a few days, but it turned out that Jonathan was simply vacationing in the Rocky Mountains. As soon as he got a cell signal again, the home renovation expert resumed his regular communication with Deschanel. "The very first text I sent when I came out of the mountains was a video I recorded to a Canadian country song that she had mentioned to me," he asserted in an interview with Bustle. It was more than enough to make up for his mistake, which could have been a romance killer.
This wasn't the only time that the couple had a communication issue, though. When they were planning their first date, Jonathan was under the impression that they would be bringing guests too, which confused Deschanel. "I was like, 'Should I bring people? Or should I call my sister?'" she recalled on the podcast, "At Home with Linda & Drew Scott." The fledgling couple experienced another minor miscommunication when Deschanel casually informed Jonathan that she would be appearing on "The Celebrity Dating Game." As he recounted to USA Today, "There was an awkward pause, and I [was] like, 'Wait, but as a host, right? Not as a contestant?'"
Costumes have featured heavily in Zooey Deschanel and Jonathan Scott's relationship
Zooey Deschanel and Jonathan Scott went Instagram official in October 2019 with some quirky, creepy photos. They were snapped at Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights, and the celebrity couple was unsurprisingly surrounded by chainsaw-wielding ghouls as a result. Fans might have expected a more romantic relationship launch from America's favorite manic pixie dream girl, like perhaps a trip to Disney to meet Peter Pan's iconic pixie pal. "Still processing how scared I was of these people dressed in spooky masks," Deschanel captioned the post.
That same month, the couple attended the Halloween wedding of the Property Brothers' other brother, J.D. Scott. The event had a costume theme, and while the "(500) Days of Summer" star is known for her love of feminine vintage frocks, she slipped on a black catsuit to be the Catwoman to Jonathan's Batman for the event. "It's the first time I've ever been cat-woman escorted to a fancy dress party wedding by Batman," Deschanel quipped on Instagram.
Likewise, when the couple appeared on the reality series "Trixie Motel," they dressed like a '70s-era lovely lady and a man named Brady to visit the iconic "Brady Bunch" house. Jonathan was helping drag queen Trixie Mattel bring some flower power to the quirky establishment, and his shirt certainly had plenty of it to spare. He and his fiancé time-traveled back to a different era for Deschanel's 40th birthday party in 2020 too, with the birthday girl channeling a "Dynasty" character and Jonathan dressing like he was about to hit the streets of The Magic City on the '80s classic "Miami Vice."
Did Jonathan Scott throw shade at Zooey Deschanel's show?
During his 2020 appearance on "At Home With Linda and Drew Scott," Jonathan Scott admitted that he had never watched a single episode of Zooey Deschanel's long-running Fox sitcom "New Girl" before the couple started dating. However, he decided to change that once they got together. "I finished the series yesterday," the "Property Brothers" star proudly confirmed. "True love is driving five hours only to see your love, for one [...] or watching their whole show." Wait a minute — did he just imply that watching the entirety of "New Girl" was a chore and not an absolute delight? Surely Jonathan should have considered himself lucky to have an excuse to watch hour after hour of his ladylove being hilarious and charming? Maybe the electric chemistry between Nick and Jess was just too much for him or something.
Adding insult to injury, during the same podcast episode, Deschanel revealed that she was actually a longtime fan of "Property Brothers" prior to meeting Jonathan. This didn't change after they started dating either. "Is it weird that I still like to watch the show?" she wondered aloud. "If I'm on a plane and there's a 'Property Brothers' marathon, that's what I'm going to watch." It is a little strange, seeing as she now gets to renovate with Jonathan himself. One of the celebrity couple's biggest projects involved turning a fixer-upper from the '30s into their forever home, even though Deschanel has an aversion to certain aspects of home renovation. "She doesn't like dirty work and loud construction noises," Jonathan told People.
A tarot reader predicted Jonathan Scott's bonus dad status
Jonathan Scott had no idea that true love was in the cards for him when he attended a wrap party in Toronto, in 2019, before crossing paths with Zooey Deschanel. "We had a tarot card reader [...] When she was doing my cards she's like, 'Ah, yes. You will be a father within the year,'" he detailed to ET. Scott was single, so the prediction seemed somewhat dubious to him. But when the Property Brother got serious with Deschanel mere months later, his reading started to come true. Jonathan has since developed a sweet relationship with Deschanel's two children, Elsie Otter and Charlie Wolf. Maybe fatherhood came to him in a way he didn't expect, but the reality star was prepared for his role as a future stepdad.
As Scott explained to Today, "I always knew I would be a great dad — former clown, magician, I can build stuff." Likewise, on the official Drew & Jonathan website, Scott disclosed that he attempted to get the kids to call him "Papa" for a while, but this was apparently too weird for them because the term was reserved for their grandfather in their minds. Eventually, the HGTV fan favorite had to settle for just being Jonathan. "Someone would say, 'Oh your daddy's so funny,' and they'd be like, 'That's not my daddy, he's my Jonathan.' So that would hurt a little bit,'" he said. But per Page Six, the kids proved just how much he means to them when they helped Scott propose to Deschanel in 2023.