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Your Favorite HGTV Stars Worked All Kinds of Jobs Before Landing Their Big Break

As much as we love the stars on HGTV, we can’t help but wonder what kind of jobs they had before becoming famous. Unlike other shows, the hosts and celebs of the famous home renovation channel don’t follow a conventional path to stardom that other stars follow. Surprisingly, the majority of them were simply contacted out of the blue by producers and asked to submit audition tapes. Because of the “reality” format of the shows, very few of them have any entertainment backgrounds whatsoever.

However, there are exceptions to every rule. For example, Property Brothers stars Drew and Jonathan Scott worked all over the place before landing their popular TV show, from acting to even modeling. While working these jobs, Jonathan renovated and flipped houses on the side, which caught the eye of HGTV producers. “We had been doing real estate for some time, but I missed my passion, acting,” Drew explained. “I went to Vancouver to pursue that, and I was taking acting courses, networking, and doing all the things I had to do to make sure that I was being seen.” In the end, it wasn’t the easiest journey because the brothers ended up landing themselves in debt. However, Drew said that the hard work was necessary to becoming who he is today. “In the end, that experience was really important because it created the buzz for our first auditions,” he said, “which got us on TV and made it worth it.”

And they’re not the only HGTV stars that have similar stories. Others went from waiting tables to even running their own businesses before getting that shocking call from a producer asking them for an audition tape. Check out the gallery below to see what today’s HGTV stars were doing before they became our current TV obsession!

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