Tarek El Moussa Reveals More ‘Extreme’ Fights Were Cut from Book: ‘Didn’t Want Too Much Violence’ (Exclusive)

Tarek El Moussa’s teenage years were even more brutal than he reveals in his new book.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the HGTV star talks about what didn’t make it into the final edition of his new memoir-meets-self-help-guide, including many more awkward encounters while growing up in a tough neighborhood in Southern California.

In an exclusive excerpt for PEOPLE Turn Your Life Around: How to Find Opportunity in Adversity—In Real Estate, Business, and Life (releases February 6), the Flipping the El Moussas star, 42, reveals that at the age of 17, he was involved in a major fight that got him arrested and charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, among other charges.

In the fight, he was confronted by men armed with clubs and crowbars, he writes. He caught a baseball bat in the ribs before he could grab the weapon and hit the other guy in the head, knocking him unconscious. The police showed up just as the second wave of much older guys came running and, Tarek says, probably saved his life. He passed out and woke up handcuffed in the back of the cruiser.

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Courtesy of Dominique El Moussa-Arnould

After spending several days in the “penitentiary”, the authorities determined that he acted in self-defense and was released and placed under house arrest.

The story is no doubt shocking to fans who know El Moussa as a TV home improvement star, but he says the incident isn’t even the worst of what he got into as a youngster.

“That one had the most extreme consequences for me, but it wasn’t the most extreme,” he tells PEOPLE about the fight. “I’ve been in shootings, I’ve been in knife fights, I’ve been hit in the face with a bat. Whatever, I’ve had it.”

He wrote about many more such incidents in early drafts of the book, but they were cut out, he says: “There were more that they didn’t put in the book… I feel like they probably just didn’t want too much violence.”

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Still, he feels it’s important to share what he did. “That’s part of my story,” he says. “We’re all a product of our environment, and I grew up in that environment. To thrive in that environment, you have to do certain things.”

He also says being honest about where he started helps him show readers how far anyone can go with the right mindset. “Right now you can literally be a bandit, rob people and change your life. Anyone can change. You just have to want to,” he explains.

Tarek El Moussa/ Instagram

El Moussa isn’t worried about how fans might react to the revelation — “I didn’t even think about it,” he says — or how his three children might learn from his past mistakes. (He shares daughter Taylor, 13, and son Brayden, 8, with ex-wife Christina Hall, and son Tristan, 1, with wife Heather Rae El Moussa.)

“They will go through difficult times in their lives and it won’t always be rainbows and butterflies,” he says. “When times get tough, you’ve got to be ready, you’ve got to be ready to fight and you’ve got to keep going.”

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Source: HIS Education