Chip and Joanna Gaines Open up About ‘Risky’ Decision to End ‘Fixer Upper’

HGTV fans are still reeling after Chip and Joanna Gaines announced in September that the fifth season of Fixer Upper would be its last.

The hit show made the Gaineses a household name, and surely spiked sales of shiplap nationwide. And Chip revealed in the couple’s January 2018 cover story for Success magazine that they knew the decision would be going out on a limb.

“The idea of leaving the show at the height of its popularity is probably pretty risky, almost irrational-sounding,” Chip said. “Our oldest [child], who’s 12, is becoming a teenager, and Jo and I just realized in our hearts that as much as we love Fixer Upper, as much as we love the honor that we have felt with this show basically introducing us to the country, if not the world, we want to make sure that we’re here for our family during really crucial, pivotal points in its journey.”

Chip and Joanna decided that they needed to step away from the show to focus on their family and relationship.

“Obviously Jo and I as a couple, we just don’t want to redline,” he said. “You know, we don’t want to run so hard after some dream or some goal only to find out that we’ve neglected the thing that means the very most to us, which is our marriage and our relationship.”

But the decision to end the show was still not one that was easy.

“We’ve prayed about it, and we’ve thought about it,” Chip continued. “This did not come lightly. … People are like, ‘You’re crazy. You would be crazy to leave this thing at the height like this. Give it another year. Let it run out of gas.’ And we kind of laugh, and we’re like, ‘You know what? That’s not who we are. We don’t want to run this thing off a cliff and into a culvert.”

The show, which had its finale season premiere on Nov. 21, is expected to be the best yet.

Several episodes will include special appearances from Texas icons Tim Tebow and Laura Bush, who will be stopping in to see the Gaineses, and Joanna will take on her “favorite” rehab yet–that of her sister.

“We are really, really proud of season five. We laid it all on the field and didn’t hold anything back. We think it’s the perfect finale to this amazing journey we’ve been on,” they wrote on their blog.

Fixer Upper airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on HGTV