Chip and Joanna Gaines lawsuits
In April 2017, Chip Gaines’s former business partners sued him for $1 million. They said he had worked to discredit them in order to force them out of the company. The suit was dismissed by a court in 2020.
Chip Gaines, for his own part, fired back: He counter-sued Lewis and Clark over defamation linked to the legal battle. He said their words to the court had undermined his reputation with inaccurate testimony. The out-of-court settlement reportedly means this counter-suit never made it into a courtroom.
Reports suggest that Chip Gaines has reached an out-of-court agreement with his former associates Lewis and Clark as regards his defamation claim. This effectively means that privately, they have resolved their dispute–saving them from a formal trial.
The lawsuit centered around allegations that Gaines did not inform Lewis and Clark about a deal he made with HGTV to air “Fixer Upper,” the show that made him famous with his wife Joanna. Lewis and Clark claimed Gaines bought out them without telling them of this major business arrangement.
Neither the legal team for Chip Gaines nor the attorney for Lewis and Clark responded right away to questions from PEOPLE, implying that the details of the settlement and its background are not likely to be made public.