The network and the production company choose a location based on diversity of architecture and the homeowner demographic. Also taken into consideration are the logistics of getting us to and from a major airport, since a lot of our down time away from set is spent traveling for appearances or press. There also has to be easy access to a pool of skilled local workers and supplies. We pushed for two years to film in Nashville before the network execs finally caved and agreed. Without being bribed.
We get thousands of applications to be featured on the show, but most are from people who have no budget and no intention of buying or selling—they just want a free house. (Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.) Then there are the ones who simply harbor a mad crush on one or both of us, but they’re quickly weeded out by the fifth time* they ask how soon until they meet us in person.
*First time if they so much as mention homemade soap.
None of the nudist families who’ve applied have made it on yet, but we have had couples move up their wedding to be married on the show, and even one pair who offered to induce early for a delivery of twins during filming. It’s amazing how competitive people can be for the opportunity. You don’t have to be a married couple to get on the show, but if you’re single, you need to have a likeable sidekick such as a best friend or relative so there’s someone to discuss your decisions with. We don’t have an inter-cranial camera capable of filming you talking to yourself inside your head.*
*YET! Patent pending . . .
We’re pumped to have such a big international viewership, even if we can’t translate tweets into Flemish or Croatian. We get people as far away as Dubai applying to be on the show, but when we’ve got 17 projects on the go, it would be hard for 16 to be in Connecticut and one in the Middle East. Or Brazil, which probably has our most enthusiastic fan base.
Three months before we set up shop in our next location, we send a team to start looking for real estate, construction, and production professionals who really love doing what they do and can do it well enough to meet our high expectations. If we aren’t already familiar with one of our upcoming locations, Jonathan and I make a trip, too, just to explore and get a sense of the vibe.
We always tell clients, trades, and anybody working on the shows that it’s going to be crazy, stressful at times, a ton of work–but SO worth it in the end. They just have to trust us :) -Drew
Nashville was high on our wish list because we’re crazy about the city and not-so-secretly wanted to be able to meet up with friends in the country music industry and do a little house-hunting of our own when we could break away from filming for a few hours. We’ve hosted the main stage for the CMA music festival five years running, and Nashville feels like a home-away-from-home to us already.
More often than not, though, when we have a rare day off from filming the two shows, we end up flying to another city to do press, film commercials, attend events, make scheduled appearances, or work on other business ventures. It’s a good thing the ability to fall instantly asleep is our superpower, because we spend a lot of time on red-eye flights. Jonathan could seriously even fall asleep in an active rock quarry.*
*Or in the middle of one of your stories.
Being in demand is any celebrity’s wish fulfilled, and it’s amazing to go from being Doublemint Twin rejects to turning down offers to appear on a dozen shows because we don’t have the time, or it’s not a good fit. Before snagging Jacinta’s heart, Jonathan may have been longing to find love, but he’s allergic to drama and manipulation, so accepting an invitation to become The Bachelor was a non-starter. The Amazing Race would be . . . well . . . amazing, but I think I’d stand a better chance of winning if I teamed up with Linda.* Jonathan and I did do a cooking competition in Canada once called Extreme Potluck, which I, of course, won, and Jonathan predictably lost—big-time.
*You take that back!
The challenge was to prepare a meal with the theme of Canadian cuisine for fifty unknown judges. We assumed because it was in a rural setting and they were “local area experts” that the judges would likely be farmers. Celebrities were paired up randomly and tasked with creating a winning dish. My teammate wanted to make her famous meatloaf,* and I prepared Linda’s family recipe for roasted butternut squash with cinnamon and crushed almonds.
*Nobody in the history of the world has ever said “I’m going to win with meatloaf.”
Jonathan made Canadian beef tenderloin with garlic mashed potatoes. His steak was so dry and overdone, it stood a better chance of winning the Stanley Cup as a hockey puck.*
*Not my fault! We cooked it perfectly, but when the show transported our food to location, they left the warmers on high. Grrr.
The coolest thing about becoming the Property Brothers hasn’t been the fame, but the familiarity. People feel like they really do know us and treat us like we’re part of the family. We have fans pull up a chair and share their stories if they spot us in a local restaurant. They see us shopping at home improvement stores and try like friendly border collies to herd us into the paint section in hopes we’ll end their chip-anxiety. They try to set us up with daughters, granddaughters, nieces, and neighbors. By the millions they keep inviting us into their homes on a daily basis. They laugh with us and at us, and we’ll take either.
We just want to keep it real.
Jonathan
The reveal is always such a great moment on every show we do, and I never get tired of seeing the astonishment on the homeowners’ faces when they see their transformed home. That we’re able to keep it a surprise is a pretty amazing accomplishment, too, considering what a blabbermouth Drew is.
Drew cannot be trusted with secrets.
One couple we were working with had just discovered they were expecting a baby, but it was still early and they were keeping the exciting news under wraps.
We threw a party for the episode’s reveal, and all of the homeowners’ family and friends had flown in for it. The couple stressed that none of us, under any circumstances, should breathe a word about the pregnancy. Everybody on the crew knew that mum was the word.
There were about fifty people at the party. I gave a speech about how wonderful our clients had been and what a great episode this would be.
Then Drew stepped out in front of everybody, put his hand on the wife’s belly and said, “AND, this beautiful space isn’t the ONLY surprise—”
The homeowner froze, her eyes like saucers. Our director was giving Drew the “shush” face. Too late. The family was going nuts with joy.
Drew swore that we told him everybody knew, and that’s probably what he heard, because he doesn’t pay attention.
Drew
Jonathan has a tendency to embellish stories. Of course, I never would, because I’m the trustworthy one. On that Property Brothers episode, I knew that the homeowner was going to make the pregnancy announcement a part of the show. We were having a big wrap-party with all of her family and our crew.
“Has she told everyone?” I asked someone on our crew, wanting to make sure, before I said anything, that the coast was clear.
“Everyone knows.” But he thought I was only referring to the crew.
During the party, the homeowner gave a beautiful speech, saying, “This is truly our dream home. We couldn’t have done it without Jonathan and Drew.” Jonathan tacked on how fun they were to work with and how thrilled we were to be able to surprise them with their new space. She then handed the mic to me. I had a beautiful and touching speech of my own planned, starting with placing my hand on her stomach and saying, “The house wasn’t the only surprise—”
Right away, I heard a collective gasp from our crew, who were all lined up to my side. They were all frantically dragging their fingers across their throats to signal me to cut. I realized to my horror that I had been misinformed, but there was no going back. The homeowner awkwardly made the best of t
he situation and confirmed she was expecting.
“Well, I was going to wait to tell you until the show aired,” she told her family, “but . . . Surprise! I’m pregnant!”
Before we get to the confidentiality faux pas, I’d like to just point out that I not only can keep a secret, but I can orchestrate and carry out a stealth plan with 007 confidence and cool. Anybody remember my crazy proposal to Linda that was months in the making, involving secret email accounts, burner phones, hidden cameras, and trays of diamonds? Exactly! She had no clue.
We were coming back from an amusement park called Playland when it happened. Two men, loud and drunk, boarded the bus. They were covered in dirt, and their ankles were spattered with blood. One of them carried a scythe. I don’t remember how old Drew and I were, exactly, but we had to be in our early teens. We watched nervously as the drunks lurched down the aisle, menacing our fellow passengers along the way.
They sexually harassed some young women with vulgar comments and lewd gestures before targeting the ethnic minorities with racial slurs and homophobic taunts. I remember the scythe-wielder turning back to Drew and me for validation and encouragement—“Right? Isn’t that right?”—as he lit into a black gentleman, assuming we shared his hatred because we were white, too. It was sickening. Drew and I just sat there frozen. Neither of us said anything. Everybody on the bus was just sitting there taking it, afraid to provoke the bullies more, all of us no doubt hoping that silently looking out the windows would spare us from becoming their next victim.
Suddenly the bus driver slammed on the brakes, causing the drunks to stumble to their knees. The driver jumped out of his seat and stormed down the aisle. “Enough!” he roared as he physically shoved the two thugs out the door and onto the pavement.
The bus erupted in cheers and clapping.
Instead of basking in his moment of heroic glory, the driver then turned on the lot of us with undisguised disgust.
“No!” he shouted. “No! You should all be ashamed of yourselves. You sat here for five minutes and didn’t say a word while people were being berated and harassed. You shouldn’t be applauding me, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
He was right.
I remember vowing to myself right then and there: I will never sit and be quiet again.
I knew without even asking that Drew was thinking the same.* We both knew better. We’d been raised to always help someone in need, to stand up not only for ourselves and for each other, but for anyone being treated badly. We’d done this so many times before at school or on the playground, but this ride was the first time we’d been in a situation involving adults, and we were scared. Not to mention confused when the adults didn’t step up. What we learned on that pivotal afternoon was to not ever stand on protocol or wait to take our cue from anyone else if we knew what was happening was wrong. It didn’t matter whether we were 15 years old or 50: Moral responsibility doesn’t carry a “best if used by” label.
*It made me feel that even though I was a kid, I should never be afraid to stand up for what’s right.
We didn’t even make it through the first day of high school without becoming a bully’s prime target. Drew and I were laughing and goofing around in the hallway. Drew grabbed one of my books and darted away from me just as this older kid was coming around the corner, and they slammed into each other. No damage, no injuries, no problem. Yeah right. The guy’s angry red face and instant death threat indicated that a hasty apology wasn’t going to suffice, no matter how sincere. He spent the rest of the semester trying to catch Drew so he could pulverize him, but the doppelganger advantage confused him to no end. Just to cover his bases, he’d stop whichever one of us he saw first.
“Are you the one, or are you the other one?” he would demand.
“I’m Jonathan, you want Drew,” I would respond. Drew would do the same if he got cornered. The bully would then demand to know which way Drew went and would be sent tearing off in another direction. And if for some reason he’d encounter the other one of us en route, we already had a plan for that, too.
“Hey! Where are you going? I just told you Drew went that way!”
It was like we were directing and starring in our own cartoon.
By the following year, Drew and I were starting to enjoy a little taste of popularity—funny and athletic made up some for skinny and nerdy, and my magic came in handy, too. (Levitating is a great party trick.) Fitting in and maybe even being considered cool wasn’t a goal, but I won’t lie and say it wasn’t welcome. Pedro, Drew, and I were notorious for pulling pranks and doing what amounted to a running improv-comedy routine that still hasn’t broken for intermission 25 years later.
We all get caught up sometimes in what starts out as a joke or gag but somehow ends up crossing a line to become insensitive—or just plain mean. My moment of clarity came in ninth grade. I was messing around, teasing this one unpopular kid, just trying to be funny when, without even thinking about it, I reached over, gave him a jab, and knocked a book out of his hand. It ate me up over the coming weeks and made for many sleepless nights. I tried to make it up to him by being inclusive for the rest of our high school years, but why didn’t I just do that in the first place?
The whole not-brave new world of social media has made it far easier for people* who are not inherently unkind to become vicious, egged on by the competitive cruelty of Internet trolls who entertain each other by seeing who can come up with the most hurtful put-down in some mob attack on a public forum. That old saying about “words can never hurt me” has never been less true than it is today—just look at the number of teen suicides that have been linked to cyber-bullying in recent years. Even one is too many.
*Mainly I ignore them. There’s nothing I could say or do that would make them feel better.
As TV personalities who enjoy interacting with fans through social media, we’re very aware of what’s on our different platforms at any given time. We’re hands-on, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. Drew could get sucked into the Bermuda Triangle and he’d still be posting pumped-up workout videos or clever little jabs at me. Do we get haters posting rude comments about us? Sure, but ignoring negative attention-seekers is the best way to silence them. There’s no point in feeding them or cleaning up after them.
At least, that’s what I always told myself.
Until January 21, 2017.
Equal rights is a cause we have always embraced, and if we hadn’t been filming, Drew and I would have gone with Jacinta, Linda, and JD’s girlfriend, Annalee, to join the Women’s March on Washington. More than a million people turned out around the globe to stand up in support of women’s rights. I posted a vintage black-and-white photo of a women’s march from 50-plus years ago—a reminder of how maddeningly slow progress is—along with a caption that read: “They are our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, our partners, and our friends. They are strong, intelligent, courageous women who deserve to be heard. A culture that respects & supports its women is one destined for great things.”
Along with the thumbs-up, hearts, and inspiring messages came the predictable backlash—not only from the usual trolls, but from some particularly vile ranks of people who seem to consider entitlement a political party and contempt their religion.
Every now and then, I’ll do a rant post concerning human rights or injustice. I try not to stoop to the level of the enemy. I’ve learned that if you make the effort to rant eloquently instead of incoherently, anyone taking offense is just going to look dim.
About to head for dinner in Vegas with the family, I snagged Drew and asked him to film a quick video. He hit record, and I spoke from the heart for 1 minute, 37 seconds:
Think back to when you were a child and your parents taught you that if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. I have no idea what happened to that. Because I read all of your posts. And fortunately,
most of our fans are incredible and they have insightful comments, and I love sharing their stories and that’s great.
But we also have some people who are just cruel and angry, and no matter what, they just have something negative to say. This is not the place for that. Not to mention that we have a lot of kids who read these posts actively . . .
If it offends you when I post saying I believe in human rights or I believe in equality or even just simple human kindness, then I think you need to take a good look in the mirror and find your source of unhappiness.
When you choose to look at the world from a place of hostility, well, it’s unlikely you’re going to see even the smallest amount of good. And that is a tragedy . . .
And when I see this inspiring situation where strangers have come together all over the world to express their peaceful passions for justice, well, that has resonated to areas on the planet where unfortunately people don’t experience the same democratic freedoms that we have. But someday I hope that they will.
I just believe that any achievement for equality here in America is a victory for human rights around the world. Period.
The rant went viral. Before I knew it, the video had drawn a reach of 1.4 million views, 42,000 reactions, and 6,000 comments on my Facebook page. It was picked up by hundreds of magazines, newspapers, entertainment shows, and local news programs. Apparently, I struck a nerve, and I’m glad.
I could only hope my plea to be kind and civilized would resonate with those who needed to hear it most—the ones who knew better, but were still sitting silently on that bus while others on the same journey were in peril.
It Takes Two Page 18