Photo:Michael Kovac/Getty
Michael Kovac/Getty
“There’s a lot more construction people don’t see. There’s a lot more contractor issues people don’t see. There’s interpersonal family dynamics that people don’t see," she shares.
When filming the series’ eighth and final season, she says, “There were definitely some challenging [moments] because my mom and I were in some of the most challenging places I felt we’ve been.”
In the season premiere, which aired Aug. 15, for example, she says she and her mother and co-star, Karen E. Laine, had just had “a knockdown drag-out [fight] during demo.”
“I was like, ‘I wonder if anyone’s going to be able to tell,’” she says. “And of course, you can’t because that’s the idea. People . . . that’s not why they’re tuning in to watchGood Bones. That’s not what they want.”
Starsiak Hawk has made a point over her career to be more candid than other stars might about her life offscreen, fromdocumenting her fertility journeyto, most recently, sharing the struggles of combining business, family, finances and fame on her podcast,Mina AF.
After revealing that she and and her mom were “not in a great place” on a recent episode ofMina AF,she tells PEOPLE that taking this journey together throughout the show’s eight seasons has been “really hard.”
Starsiak Hawk started her Indianapolis-based company, Two Chicks and a Hammer, with her mom in 2007. While Laine stepped back from the company in 2019, she still appears on the show alongside Starsiak Hawk and their team.
“I think family business is hard enough on its own,” she shares. “And 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. And 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.”
Starsiak Hawk says the pair got really close from the time she was in college to when they started their company.
With her podcast, Starsiak Hawk says she’s trying to share the “non-pretty parts” of her life and have an outlet separate from her social media, which she keeps more neutral.
On one recent episode ofMina AF,Mina and husband Steve Hawk had a candid conversation about their decision to give up alcohol.
She says the overwhelming majority of commenters thanked them for talking about the sensitive topic, though there was one rude comment.
“Someone was like, ‘Oh, this makes so much sense why he’s so weird in all the episodes, he had a drinking problem,” she says. “I’m like, ‘What the f— is wrong with you?’ So there’s definitely some dumb people like that, but the vast majority of the episodes, as well as that one, are just people saying, ‘Thank you for saying the thing. I experienced the thing and it made it easier for me to talk about the thing.' And the sobriety one, I think, really did that.”
Mina Starsiak Hawk/Instagram
On the Aug. 28 episode, Mina opened up about a dilemma she faced over whether to address conflicts with her mom and brothers, Tad and William, ahead of her 5-year-old son Jack’s birthday party. (She and Steve are also parents to a 2-year-old daughter, Charlie.)
“And so while you can let those things go and say everyone’s doing the best they can when they can, also, some people’s best isn’t good enough, and that’s okay too,” she says.
“We’ve all moved past it,” she adds. “But when we became close, we became close as friends. We never were really close as ‘You are my mom; you take care of me. I’m your daughter; I look to you to be a safe place.’"
She adds, “And all my siblings have much stronger relationships than her and I do.”
While Mina currently has three home renovations in the works, she says if her team was rolling into another season ofGood Bones,they’d likely have 12 projects “going gangbusters.”
“It’s the best place to be for what I do,” she says.
“So much has changed in the world since we started,” she adds. “So the fact that the show hadn’t changed in eight years and so many other things in life had — it’s a miracle that we got as far as we did.”
source: people.com
