Chip and Joanna Gaines‘ Magnolia empire might not have existed if she had fallen for his roommate. The Fixer Upper star has revealed she almost ended up dating Chip’s pal, “Hot John.”

Joanna told the story when the couple appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon‘s Valentine’s Day episode on Tuesday, February 14.

No Fixing Up Needed! Joanna Gaines Is Absolutely Flawless in Stunning Bikini Photos
 Gorgeous as a Magnolia! Joanna Gaines' Stunning and Rare Bikini Photos

While she was working in her dad’s tire shop in Waco, Texas, Chip’s roommate “Hot John” was a customer whom Joanna was trying to work up the nerve to speak to. “I got the courage to get up out of my office. I walk towards the waiting room and John, and I make eye contact. But I’m not really gifted in any conversation. So, I look at him and I’m like, ‘Now what?'” Joanna recalled.

“And so instead of going to the waiting room, I walk straight outside, like I was going to take a smoke break or something,” she continued. Then fate stepped in as the next person she saw was Chip.

“Unlike her, I’m incredible at eye contact. I always have a one-liner planned for any occasion where you might meet one of the most beautiful women on the planet,” the home remodeler said of meeting his future wife. “You must have that back-pocket line ready to rock. So, she walked right past Hot John, thankfully, right into the loving arms [of me].”

Chip and Joanna Gaines
Brian Ach/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

“John’s tall, dark and handsome. I was sort of shorter, redder and frumpier,” Chip said with a self-effacing laugh. But he was charming enough that he won Joanna’s heart, as the pair began dating in 2001 and married on May 31, 2003.

Chip has recalled previously how he was transfixed by Joanna before ever meeting her. After his initial trip to her dad’s tire shop, the HGTV star believed he’d found “The One” just by seeing a photo of her. “Her dad made the mistake of putting a pic of the family behind the counter at his [automotive] shop. I knew I’d marry her one day just by the picture on the wall,” he told PopSugar.

He kept returning to the shop in hopes of finally meeting Jo face to face. “My buddies used to always joke that no one could get their brakes done as often as I got my brakes done,” Chip told Waco TV station KWTX.
After nearly 20 years of marriage, Chip and Joanna have built an empire that began with Magnolia Realty in 2003, the same year they wed. Fixer Upper debuted on HGTV in 2013 and went on to become one of the network’s top shows, as the couple bought, remodeled and sold homes around Waco. The pair created their own home goods line, a magazine called The Magnolia Journal and the Magnolia TV Network, formerly known as the DIY Network.

In between running their incredible business ventures, Chip and Joanna are also devoted parents to five children: sons Drake, 18, Duke, 14, and Crew, 4, and daughters Ella Rose, 16, and Emmie Kay, 13.