“After Josh and I split up, I went over to [Ant’s] house to pick Hudson up because I was taking him to a birthday party,” Christina says. “And when I walked up to the door, he gave me a huge hug. We hadn’t hugged in years.”

The genuine show of support proved to be a turning point in their relationship.

“He just said ‘I’m so sorry for everything you’re going through and I’m here for you no matter what you need.’ It was a very nice moment. We had a long talk after and we decided to put all the BS aside and be good co-parents, like Tarek and I, for Hudson.”

Christina and her first husband Tarek El Moussa share two children, Taylor, 14, and Brayden, 9.

Later in the scene, Christina calls Anstead to ask him whether he’d be open to appearing as a guest judge on The Flip Off.

The new series follows Christina and her trusted team as they compete in a house flipping competition against Tarek and his wife Heather El Moussa. She was originally set to partner up with her now-estranged husband Josh before the pair split two months after the series was announced.

Tarek and Heather previously opened up about how they were in complete shock when they found out Anstead would be appearing on the show during an exclusive interview with PEOPLE in January.

They said that the series of events especially caught them off guard because they had no clue Christina and Anstead were even on speaking terms following their tense divorce.

“All of a sudden they’re besties,” Tarek recalled of his reaction to seeing Anstead and Christina interact on set. Heather added that it “really threw us off” because they were under the impression that Christina and Ant “weren’t talking.”

Heather explained how watching Christina and Anstead’s newly-mended relationship “unfold in front of our eyes” was a whirlwind experience.

“[Christina] started following [Ant] on Instagram and we were like, ‘What? What’s going on?’ It really was like that for us,” she said at the time. “You see it transpire on TV and we’re so thrown off by the situation. I think we texted her, ‘Why are you following Ant? What’s going on?’”

Referring to Tarek, Christina chimed in, “I feel like some of [the judges] that I picked were just to mess with him. It worked.”

Fans first got a hint that Anstead might be joining the show when Christina joked about him replacing Josh on the series following his sudden exit.

Christina and Anstead were then spotted filming together in November 2024, and a source told PEOPLE at the time: “Ant is going to appear on the show, but he won’t be Christina’s partner.”

Both Christina and Ant are currently in relationships. Christina is dating businessman Christopher Larocca, and Anstead is in a nearly four-year relationship with Oscar-winning actress Renée Zellweger.

The Flip Off airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV.