All The Signs Kortney & Dave Wilson From HGTV's Masters Of Flip Wouldn't Last

Even before Kortney Wilson and Dave Wilson rose to prominence through HGTV's "Master of Flip," they already had a lot in common. Both Canadians, they met in Nashville while pursuing their passion for music. They hit it off right away and went on to marry, have three children, and star on a popular show. It sounded too perfect to be true — maybe because it was. In 2019, they announced they were joining the list of HGTV stars whose marriages ended in divorce.

The news caught fans by surprise. "When I heard Kourtney and Dave Wilson got divorced, I was shocked. They always seemed to get along on their show and didn't have any real disagreements on camera," one Reddit user observed. But the signs had been there all along. By their own admission, Kortney and Dave have very different personalities. Although their differences were good for the show in some respects, they often created tension at home.

While the Wilsons weren't the only HGTV stars with strange aspects to their marriages, they ultimately couldn't make it work. Their issues persisted in their co-parenting journey. "While I witnessed a beautiful co-parenting experience with a friend earlier this week, it's certainly not that way for me and can quite literally be exhausting," Kortney wrote in a 2024 Instagram post. In 2021, Dave even helped his oldest son fight for emancipation from Kortney, citing he was "miserable and unhappy" living with her, Scoop Nashville reported. It's a sad way to end a decades-long relationship, but the red flags were there.

Kortney Wilson planned to adopt before she had any kids at all. And she was going to make that happen regardless of how any prospective partners felt about it. She told Dave Wilson as much when they met. "I knew that I wanted to adopt. And so, actually, on my first date with Dave, I'd said, 'Listen, I want to adopt a baby at some point in my life, so if this is a deal-breaker for you, let me know now,'" she said on the "A Woman Like You" podcast in 2024. Dave was on a first date and just went with it.

He laughed it off and said it was fine. But when his wife brought it up again years later, he expressed doubts about it, especially considering where they were in their lives. Kortney was breastfeeding their second child, Sully, in 2006 when she told him it was time. "Dave said, 'Time for what?' and I said, 'Time to start the adoption process!' And as any father of a second baby would say, his response was, 'Are you kidding me? Our child is two months old!'" she recalled to This Mom Loves in 2016.

Kortney wouldn't hear it. She was ready for baby No. 3, and her husband's feelings wouldn't stand in her way. "That was going to be part of my life and my plan," she said. Kortney and Dave adopted their daughter Lennox (seen above) in 2009.

At one point during their marriage, Kortney Wilson decided to transform her and Dave Wilson's bedroom into a space for her. "Kortney converted our master bedroom into her own personal closet!" he told PopSugar in 2016, suggesting he hadn't exactly been on board. But Kortney stood by her unusual home project. "I moved our bedroom to the sitting room. It was smaller than our bedroom, obviously," she explained. It's not like she didn't think of him at all.

She gave him a little something, too. "I made the bedroom my closet, and I gave David the closet off our master bathroom," she added. That's very generous of her, of course. And if Dave didn't think so, that was just too bad because she loved the deal. "It's seriously awesome, and it's my favorite room in the house. You can actually find me there drinking Champagne on a Saturday afternoon reading a book," she said.

Dave certainly got the short end of the stick in his wife's project. Even her social media followers thought so. When she shared the news with her fans, the backlash from folks who thought she was selfish was such that she took down the post. In a Q&A with This Mom Loves, she argued people criticize without knowing the full story, especially when they see someone happy. "If someone posting something negative about my closet or towards me for posting my closet had known my backstory, they may have chosen different words," she said.

As two people who dedicated their lives to home renovation, Kortney Wilson and Dave Wilson cared a lot about what their house looked like. But their approaches differed in big ways. Kortney needed her home to always look nice, whereas Dave was a lot more relaxed. And unfortunately for her, their three kids took after their dad in that regard. "I know I'm not the only one who experiences anxiety over clutter. But I'm definitely the only one in our family, which is tough on all of us. It's not easy for them to live with a neat freak," she admitted in an excerpt of their 2019 book, "Live Happy: The Best Ways to Make Your House a Home," shared in the This Mom Loves Q&A.

Instead of trying to be more flexible, Kortney tried to get everyone to adhere to her standards. "I started charging our boys $3.00 for each dirty clothing item they leave on the floor for me to pick up," she revealed. She made it a full-time job to ensure everyone respected her wishes, even though she knew it was hard on them. "My job is to constantly stay on top of everyone," she said.

Her marriage may have ended, but her need for neatness didn't. In 2022, she shared snippets of her home with her Instagram fans that highlighted this trait. "I'm kind of envious of anyone who can actually rest through the clutter. I'm not judging. I just can't do it," she wrote.

Throughout their marriage, Kortney Wilson and Dave Wilson had completely incompatible eating habits. She is a long-time vegetarian, while he is a committed meat eater, they revealed in the PopSugar interview. While Dave doesn't really address his eating style, Kortney often shares her preference with her social media followers. "I adore animals. I am vegetarian. Every once in a while, I eat fish, which technically makes me a pescatarian," she captioned a 2023 Instagram post.

It's unclear whether the couple raised their kids on a vegetarian or omnivore diet, but Kortney makes them meat-free dishes at least some of the time. "These veggies will turn into my tomato sauce (once I add the [tomatoes]) and the kids will rave about it. And I will be a happy mom because they are their veggies!" she wrote in a 2017 Facebook post featuring the pot with vegetables (seen above). In the hashtags, she indicated that the dish was vegetarian.

Since getting together with her now-husband Ryan Vella, Kortney has stepped back from the kitchen. She has also shifted her focus to protein intake in her quest to build more muscle and stay fit as she gets older. Her lifestyle doesn't help in this department, though. "The hardest thing for me is I'm a pescatarian. I was actually mainly a vegetarian, but I'm having to introduce a little bit more fish into my diet to get to my protein," she revealed in a 2024 Instagram post.

Kortney Wilson and Dave Wilson were a great team on many fronts. Their personalities complemented each other in a way that allowed them to flip houses efficiently and creatively. "Dave and I are very different people — that's often why it works," she said in the "A Woman Like You" conversation. "But I was the consistent, practical one, and Dave brought the energy and the fun but was inconsistent." However, "Masters of Flip" also created problems for them as a couple.

While fans were done with the episode as soon as they turned off their TVs, Kortney and Dave never were. "I would love to say that we leave it at the front door every day but we don't," she said in the This Mom Loves interview. Their differences also created imbalances in their working roles that exacerbated issues in their marriage. "I'm very analytical and type A and Dave is way more laid back. He doesn't really have deadlines! So he can let things go a lot easier than I can," she said.

By the end of Season 4, Kortney knew their professional partnership had stopped working. They had to let it go if they wanted to save their personal relationship. "I was fighting for my marriage at that point," she said in the podcast. While the show wasn't the problem, it added stress that couples who don't work together don't have. "I was fighting to make it easier on us," she said.