HGTV star Izzy Battres is detailing his past experience with drugs — and sharing how he overcame past struggles.
“I started off with drinking, then smoking weed, then dropping mushrooms, dropping acid, smoking PCP,” Battres said in a clip from Richard Taite’s “We’re Out of Time” podcast, shared by People on Monday, May 12.
Battres — who appeared on Flip or Flop before getting his own series, Izzy Does It — noted that living “in the hood” made PCP accessible and it was “so inexpensive.”
“You’d drop PCP. Put joints in PCPs, they’d call them lovelies and that’s what we did,” he added, before admitting to getting arrested and going to jail in the past.
“There’s a lot of people out there who find themselves in that place and think they’re never going to get out, there’s no hope,” he said. “And I’m just here to tell you guys that there is hope.”
Battres noted that he’s currently experiencing a “redemption story” in his life. Elsewhere in the podcast, according to People, he said making the decision to go through recovery jump started “an immediate transformation” in his life.”I got up. I felt lighter. I felt delivered,” he said. “And from that day on, no more meth, no more madness. It was just a miracle.”
Battres made his HGTV debut in 2013 as Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack’s contractor on Flip or Flop and appeared on both Christina on the Coast and The Flip Off. The network confirmed in June 2024 that Battres would be getting his own show, Izzy Does It, which premiered in February.
“During his time on Flip or Flop, Izzy gained popularity because of his expertise, sense of humor and common sense,” interim head of content at HGTV, Betsy Ayala, shared in a statement last year. “The entire Battres family including Izzy’s wife, brother, and two kids, will collaborate on incredible renovations, but this isn’t just a series about building homes, it’s about building a family legacy — and that changes everything we think we know about renovation series.”
Ahead of his own show, Battres praised former costar and longtime friend Haack during an interview with Realtor.com.
“Christina, continue being who you are,” he said in February. “[I’m] very proud of her building a successful business and being a successful designer and just being on television [because] navigating through those waters is not for the faint of heart. [But] she has done it, and she continues to do it.”
He added, “She does it with a lot of heart and a lot of joy, and those lessons that she continues to chat with me [about] on the side — that’s a lot of good wisdom that I glean from, and I appreciate that.”
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