What Happened With Mina Starsiak and Karen E. Laine? Inside Their “Good Bones” Rift — And Where the Mother-Daughter Duo Stand Today

Mina Starsiak has opened up on her podcast 'Mina AF' about her fraught relationship with her mom

Mina Starsiak Hawk and her mom, Karen E. Laine, returned for a special limited season of Good Bones amid their public rift.

The mother-daughter duo, who co-founded the company Two Chicks and a Hammer, starred on eight seasons of the HGTV reality show as they renovated houses in their hometown of Indianapolis. They used Karen's legal background and Mina’s real estate knowledge to find properties to flip.

The original series ran from March 2016 to October 2023 and spawned the 2022 spinoff Good Bones: Risky Business. While Karen retired from their company in 2019, she remained a part of the series, shifting from home renovations to DIY projects. However, after eight seasons, Mina announced on her podcast Mina AF in August 2023 that Good Bones was ending.

Related: Mina Starsiak Hawk's Family: What to Know About Her Parents and Siblings Amid Their Rift

As the show began to air its final episodes, she got candid about some of the behind-the-scenes conflicts, namely with her mother. According to Mina, complicated family dynamics mixed with business and finances were too much to take on.

“It's a cumulative situation from the time I can remember ... of things that have created the situation that we're in now and it's incredibly hard to undo," she said on Mina AF in September 2024.

So what caused the rift between Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine? Here's everything to know about where the former Good Bones costars stand today.

Who are Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine?

Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine are the mother-daughter duo behind the company Two Chicks and a Hammer and the HGTV series Good Bones.

Karen is a mother to four children, including Mina. She shares her daughter and two sons, CR and William, with her ex-husband, Casey Starsiak. She went on to marry her now ex-husband Randy Gray and they welcomed daughter Kelsy.

Casey later remarried a woman named Cheryl, and the couple welcomed son Thadeus "Tad" and daughter Jessica. After Cheryl died when the children were young, Tad and Jessica grew closer to Karen.

On the career front, Karen graduated from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 1992 and spent her career as a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney. She went on to use her legal background in combination with her daughter’s real estate insight to secure Indianapolis homes and renovate them.

Mina co-founded Two Chicks and a Hammer with her mom in 2007 and worked in real estate prior to the inception of Good Bones. She married her husband, Steve Hawk, in 2016, after the couple met on social media in 2013.

They welcomed their first child together, son Jack Richard Hawk, in August 2018. Two years later, the couple celebrated the arrival of their daughter Charlotte "Charlie" Drew Hawk in September 2020.

How did the rift between Mina and Karen start on Good Bones?

Good Bones was an HGTV reality show that ran for eight seasons from 2016 to 2023 and spawned the 2022 spinoff, Good Bones: Risky Business. After Good Bones season 8 aired, it returned for a special limited season in 2024, Good Bones: New Beginnings.

The original series followed the mother-daughter duo as they embarked on a journey to redo homes in their hometown of Indianapolis. Karen used her experience as a lawyer, while Mina leveraged her real estate knowledge to purchase local run-down homes and transform them.

While the show captured stunning renovations, it also caught the realities of the intense projects, including how financial stress started to affect the mood on set. Mina shared behind-the-scenes information about the final season of Good Bones after a social media user said she looked “angry” on the show.

In a September 2023 episode of her podcast Mina AF, she said that she had “all the risk” as the sole owner of Two Chicks and a Hammer following her mom’s retirement in 2019.

“So, mom, [and her costars] Austin [Aynes], Tad [Starsiak], Cory [Miller], MJ [Coyle], everyone else is there having fun, and they’re getting paid to be there, just regular pay, to have fun,” she explained.

Mina clarified that she paid liability insurance, owned the properties and paid all of the contractors, as well as workers comp insurance.

“I, as one single human, carry the weight of everything you see on TV,” she added. “And not in a toot-my-own-horn way, but like this is why I’m so damn cranky all the time, you guys. Because I can’t be the one having fun.”

When did Mina and Karen's feud escalate?

In an October 2023 episode of her podcast, Mina opened up about what she wishes she had known before Good Bones.

“I think I knew ... that this was going to be hard and it was going to challenge relationships, because when you put anything under a spotlight, in a pressure cooker, there’s the opportunity to explode,” she said.

As for her relationship with her mom, Mina expressed that even before the show, the mother-daughter duo had their fair share of issues that they were ultimately able to overcome. She noted that if they “made it through all that, we can make it through this.”

However, filming the show with her mom proved difficult, especially during the final season. Mina told PEOPLE in September 2023, “There were definitely some challenging [moments] because my mom and I were in some of the most challenging places I felt we've been.”

She also revealed that they had “a knockdown drag-out [fight] during demo" when they started filming the season 8 premiere.

“I was like, ‘I wonder if anyone's going to be able to tell,’ ” she recalled. “Of course, you can't because that's the idea. People ... that's not why they're tuning in to watch Good Bones. That's not what they want.”

While Mina revealed she and Karen haven't always gotten along, she said there was a years-long period of her life — from her college days to starting Two Chicks and a Hammer — that was smooth sailing. Eventually, though, Mina and Karen didn't start seeing eye to eye.

“It was maybe eight years of my now 39 years that we were extremely close,” she explained. “It's very challenging when you aren't working from a super stable base to then throw in TV, which will just completely f--- your world up if you let it. And it's really, really hard for people not to let it.”

What happened after Mina and Karen's fallout?

In the wake of her fallout with her mom, Mina said in October 2023 that she and Karen “do not talk.”

Still, the entrepreneur revealed on her podcast that Karen unexpectedly reached out the day she recorded. “We haven’t in a long time. It was early this morning, and I just didn’t really know what to do with it," she said.

On Mina AF, Mina further detailed the behind-the-scenes drama on Good Bones, including her strained relationship with her mother. In opening up about these issues, she said she became subject to judgment from listeners for “not forgiving and forgetting because it’s family and blood is thicker than water.”

“Those people can think what they want, but it’s so complicated,” she noted.

In a September 2023 interview with PEOPLE, Mina said that “family business is hard enough on its own” before reflecting on her own relationship with Karen.

“From what people know from the show, my mom and I are thick as thieves, best friends, and because they just don't know anything else, they assume that's how it's always been,” she shared. “I think a lot of people really aspire to that, so they don't want to know other stuff, which is fine. But my mom and I have had a very rocky relationship since I have memories."

What is going on with Mina and Karen today?

As of August 2023, Mina said her relationship with her mom and other family members was "fraught."

Mina explained on Mina AF that despite disagreements, they have "always coexisted" and were "pleasant enough around each other" during holidays and trips. Still, she wondered if it was "the right thing" to continue doing, especially at family events at her home involving her children.

Things came to a head in their relationship when she decided not to invite her family to her son Jack’s fifth birthday party due to her “challenging” dynamics. When figuring out who to have over, Mina said that she invited her friends with kids who see Jack regularly.

“Not only do my mom and my two brothers not fall into that category of being involved in their life on a regular basis, we’re also not on good terms,” she added. The TV personality also acknowledged that there may be reasons for the disconnection, but she was vocal with Karen about her having access to the kids.

After the end of Good Bones in 2023, Mina returned to HGTV on House Hunters: All Stars in March 2024. Fast forward, in August 2024, Mina and Karen returned in a different capacity for the spinoff Good Bones: New Beginnings, which featured them working on separate projects in different states.

Though Mina reprised her role on a Good Bones project, she said in a June 2024 podcast episode that the previous year had taken a toll on her and it wouldn't be the smartest choice to resume the original show.

“I just think it would be a really bad decision for me mentally and emotionally, let alone financially, to get back in that place,” she said.

Meanwhile, in the years after she retired and stepped back from Two Chicks and a Hammer in 2019, Karen settled in Wilmington, N.C., where she bought a fixer-upper beach house. In a preview clip of the 2024 Good Bones spinoff, she said, “I’m not working for a paycheck anymore. I retired in 2019, and I can do anything I want."

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