'Home Town': Ben and Erin Napier Reveal How Surgery Impacted Their 'Most Heartfelt' Season Ever (Exclusive)
HGTV's Ben Napier underwent shoulder surgery in March 2023.
Ben and Erin Napier are back for their "most heartfelt" Home Town episodes ever. The HGTV stars return with fresh episodes of their hit show on Sunday, Jan. 7, bringing new life to outdated homes and historical locations in their small town of Laurel, Mississippi, while also navigating a major medical curveball thrown Ben's way. Ahead of the premiere, Ben and Erin opened up to PopCulture.com about the episodes to come as they spoke candidly about how Ben's shoulder surgery and subsequent recovery.
Fans will see "a lot of really heartfelt episodes" this year, Erin said, calling them "maybe our most heartfelt ever." Tackling their biggest budget, their biggest residence and even a house on the campus of their alma mater Jones College, the Napiers had their work cut out for them during filming, all of which was made quite a bit more complicated when Ben had to undergo shoulder surgery to repair his torn rotator cuff in March 2023.
"My doctor said that normally they would just let me heal and not do surgery, and then do [physical therapy]," Ben told PopCulture, "but because of my line of work, they were like, 'We need to go ahead and fix this before you have more problems.'" Fans will get to see a glimpse of Ben's 6-month-long recovery in Sunday's premiere, but Erin revealed the "tricky" thing was dealing with it throughout filming without having it be the centerpiece of each episode.
"The office crew, the construction crew, everybody when I go to do something, you see hands come up
and people say, 'Can you do that?'" Ben joked. Overall, the HGTV star told PopCulture that despite having to completely recover his range of motion and strength, it was a relief to have the surgery done. "I was in so much pain before that the next day when I woke up from the surgery, it was actually a relief," Ben revealed. "It had been hurting me so bad that I was losing sleep, which is why I started going to the doctor in the first place."
Ben still isn't at "100%" when it comes to his arm's full recovery, but he noted, "But I'm good enough that I can make the TV show and nobody notices." Erin agreed, "So you may see he's not lifting countertops, it's things like that that are subtle. People who are paying attention might notice." Home Town returns with a brand new season on Sunday, Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV.