Tarek El Moussa Tells His Side of Gun Incident That Ended His Marriage to Christina Hall

Tarek El Moussa is finally sharing in detail one scary incident that led to the end of his marriage to Christina Hall. In his new memoir, Flip Your Life (out Feb. 6), he reveals all. El Moussa, who appears on Netflix's Selling Sunset alongside his new love Heather Rae Young, starred on the HGTV reality series Flip or Flop with his ex-wife for 10 seasons, even after their split, was accused of having a mental health breakdown amid his marital drama with Hall, but he rarely spoke on the intimate details publicly.

While El Moussa and Hall were separated for seven months before news leaked of their 2016 split, an altercation involving a gun and a troubling 911 call caused a media frenzy. Hall called 9-1-1 and reported that El Moussa had fled into the woods with a pistol and was afraid of what he'd do. PEOPLE obtained an exclusive excerpt that details what happened on the day in question.

In his book, he writes that after a heated argument, he "went out to our backyard in Yorba Linda and hopped over the fence." On that much, the exes agree. But his explanation as to why differs. He says rather than fleeing, he was craving exercise and wanted to scout the trails near the house after having recently purchased some new mountain bikes.

In the neighboring area, Chino Hills State Park, is a habitat for wildlife, causing El Moussa to purchase a .38-caliber pistol for what he refers to as an "insurance policy," and that he'd already obtained his California gun license. While in the area, he heard a helicopter nearby and assumed it was for a different reason, but he quickly realized it was for him.

 "A police officer leaning out of the helicopter pointed a rifle at me. Dust swirled around me from the spin of the blades, and a loudspeaker crackled, 'Get your hands in the air!'" he writes. He was then swarmed by more police. 

"I heard an officer shout, 'Tarek?' I screamed back, 'Yes! I'm the guy from TV! What are you guys doing?'" he says. The incident marked the beginning of what he called a downward spiral.  

"For the next several hours, I sat on a cooler on my driveway, handcuffed," he writes of the aftermath. "That was the very last time we were together as a family: with Christina walking down the driveway, crying, and me sitting there in handcuffs, asking myself, What in the world is going on?"

He says the months after his divorce were hell for him. He'd found himself drinking excessively and going through severe withdrawal due to the end of his seven-year marriage

"Everybody gave up on me: the magazines, the outlets, the network, nobody believed in me," he wrote. His friends encouraged him to enter a rehab facility. Learning reconciliation wasn't an option with Hall was crushing. He learned she'd found new love elsewhere, and had to come to terms with the marriage ending, and the breakup of his family. 

He says he doesn't resent Hall, telling PEOPLE: "I hold nothing against Christina. I understand why she did what she did. We had a lot of hard years through my sicknesses and my mental health struggles from the testosterone. I've never said any of this, ever."