The Nicole Curtis/Rehab Addict Ban - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 49

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 1 - January 23, 2026

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 48 - May 15, 2026

I realize that the TV show Rehab Addict starring Nicole Curtis is currently shelved. I saw the video and have read a few articles on this situation. As I consider it, as I think most should, it looks as if it was a fatigued attempt to be cheeky and she awkwardly said the N word instead of something creatively funny like “Oh, fart knockers!”

Rehab Addict Nicole Curtis

What’s happening to her now might seem like news to other people, but I see as same-old since I was caught within a Nicole Curtis/Rehab Addict ban of my own over a decade ago. It’s time in this series to share this part of my story. Coincidentally, her recent news merges with what I started in January of this year.   

Back in February, I explained how people compared me, my houses, and how I approached them to what they’d seen Nicole Curtis doing on her hit TV show Rehab Addict. That was 2011. I watched the show and in 2012, I wrote about it and its blonde rehabber. She commented and I began to post more articles about RA and other shows on HGTV/DIY. In the fall of 2013, I received an unsolicited email from a programming director with the dual networks, leading to this young woman sending the production company behind Rehab Addict to come meet and film me in November 2013.

In my first phone conversation with the production company, they’d glowed about working with Ms. Curtis and producing her show. They sent me rough cut DVDs of Rehab Addict to study and understand.

So, because of the comparisons to and similarities with Ms. Curtis, the fact that we both took on the worst of the worst houses and this cool opportunity, I held some natural loyalty, even without ever meeting or speaking with her. Beyond these folks going AWOL and getting wishy-washy at me balking over imitating Ms. Curtis, I’d made an effort to remain open-minded because they produced Rehab Addict, and I thought that made them uniquely qualified for a show about me reviving the Summerville, South Carolina project house. And in March 2014, I filmed a pilot episode for what became American Rehab Charleston.

To get better acquainted with me, producers said they read my blog, trying to understand how I related to Curtis, my take on her approach and attitude toward this work we both loved. And yet even with this, as well as the other background and history, it amazed me how no one had taken a few minutes to call in 2014 to let me know that the rehabbing dynamo had stopped working with them. She was still on HGTV and DIY, but by way of different producers. I suppose, it may have been hard to explain. Perhaps the details were embarrassing. However, as difficult as it may have been, I’d have thought someone would have found a way to clue me in before we began to film the pilot. It might have been like so many other things, that the network thought the production company did it and the people up in Minnesota thought the decision makers over in New York had.

Yet I’d been overlooked.  

I don’t want to make it seem like this was all on producers. There was something going on, something about me, that made them unable or unwilling to be more transparent. And that’s a shame.

In January 2015, I had a front row seat to this oddity, left to just figure it out through body language, facial gestures, and between-the-line readings. It was as if key producers were anxious about the names Nicole Curtis and Rehab Addict, or maybe it was just loyalties opposite of mine, what I had thought were ours, shared, something we all had in common. They avoided both names, hers and the show, changed the subject sharply or wincing whenever either came up. After they’d sent me those DVDs, this baffled me. They’d been so proud of her and her breakout show, but for me, this attitude was out of the blue.

This eggshell walking wasn’t necessary for everyone on the crew, but a few were ultra-sensitive.

It was fascinating.

As one example, there was a piece of equipment that had been shipped down from Minnesota. It was marked boldly with two letters: RA. I asked if they stood for Rehab Addict. It tracked, and for me, it would have been a fun thing to know. But the crew member became unusually quiet. And this normally smooth young woman got squirrely, taking too long to answer the simple question. Finally, she said something like “Uh... it stands for another show we were thinking about doing called… Renovation America.” Maybe that was true, but I didn’t believe her. I still don’t, especially with all the other weirdness about NC and RA.  

Eventually, I began to get a grip on this split-up between this production company split and Ms. Curtis. And even though I didn’t know her or had ever met her, it was like I was her friend, on her side in this divorce. And I didn’t really mind that. It was just a wacky connection for someone to make when none existed. Not an actual one. But it was one of those circumstances that made me feel like I was in, even though I wasn’t.

Still, my loyalty seemed to be an issue. Again, as when I’d been unwilling to say, “My name is Trent, and I’m addicted to rehab,” I think my imagined alliance with Nicole Curtis was a positive to most of the crew. But the saddest part of this may have been how some producers seemed to have been put in the position of supporting their boss, choosing that person’s side over Curtis or neutrality.

It was three months of this zaniness, and it gave me some stuff to mull over. 

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 50 - May 20, 2026

Trent on a Fast Track - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 43

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 1 - January 23, 2026

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 42 - April 29, 2026

To be clear and transparent, the filming for the pilot was a cool experience when the project implications were overlooked. I was the focal point of attention and full-on adoration for two straight weeks. Production assistants offered me water and fetched me coffee. Producers fed me lunch every day and oversaw the two weeks of pilot filming that ran like clockwork. And the network picked up the lion’s share of the costs for the initial improvements made to the house.

Getting to that point of being in the spotlight as I was, felt like its own special accomplishment. I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant big picture or long term, but it seemed noteworthy after almost fizzling multiple times during the long stretch of waiting.

However, I was not great, at all. I thought I’d be better but wasn’t confident when speaking and my enthusiasm was inauthentic. My energy level was more from caffeine than organic excitement over what we were doing. I was sincerely disappointed, more in the talent than anyone else. I talked over people, tripped on my words, and often used the same description too many times. I had not shined as hoped. I’d let myself down and understood that the producers felt the same. I saw them wince, picked up on their hard-to-hide indifference. They were steadfastly professional, but these were not actors. They couldn’t pretend that I was brilliant when I muddled day-to-day in full view.    

Although getting the initial green light had happened quickly, and may have seemed easy to others looking in, perhaps even as I’ve written about it here in this Response series, it had been rough and bumpy and taken a long time, with the last leg, December through March, being supremely dicey. But I’d come through without losing my mind off camera and without melting down, venting frustrations while being filmed with every word recorded. It hadn’t been an Ironman triathlon or completion of a marathon, yet at the end, I was drained. I’d endured and it was a milestone to get to that point and then through this experience working with the producers on site and remotely throughout the country.

As I’ve said before, they treated me nicely. But I could tell I wasn’t saying what they wanted me to say, how they wanted it said, even after they tried to tell me. They were positive when they could be, like letting me know I had a knack for knowing where the camera was, opening up and adjusting as needed. And they seemed to appreciate my personality and sense of humor.

However, there were producers who seemed super-duper pleased, very impressed, making me feel genuinely optimistic of chances at being picked up for the series. The high point of this enthusiasm was when a producer pulled me aside and said, “You’re doing great! We have enough for the first segment. We’re gonna fast track it, get approval for the pick-up, and then we’ll be right back.” That was news that had me standing a little straighter. And he added, “It won't be April. But what we have is looking really good and we’ll be back by May for sure.”

Of course, they didn't want me to work on the house until they returned, and I had some privately held mixed feelings about this. But if they were coming back, I could find ways to be productive for four or five weeks that would surely buzz by quickly.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 44 - Coming Soon