Reality TV star cited for battery at Strip hotel

Las Vegas police last week cited a reality TV star known for co-hosting HGTV’s “Flip or Flop.”

Records provided by the Metropolitan Police Department, showed that 43-year-old Tarek El Moussa, a California native and one of the faces behind a 10-season-long television show about house flipping, was given a citation after a June 6 incident where he allegedly pushed and punched another man in the head at the Palazzo.

Police received a call about an assault on the property around 11 p.m. that day. The caller said that two men were “in an altercation” and that one wanted to press charges, a Metro incident report stated.

When officers arrived, they spoke to the victim, who said a stranger, later identified as El Moussa, “approached him aggressively” and hit him. Police observed multiple injuries on the face of the man, whose name was redacted in the report. They said he had purple and reddish bruising under his right eye and a cut on his nose bridge.

El Moussa told police that the man had first hit his father and declined to be interviewed by officers without a lawyer present. The Review-Journal’s attempts to reach El Moussa for comment were unsuccessful.

Palazzo’s security provided surveillance footage showed that the victim was standing near a roulette table with El Moussa’s father standing behind him, according to police. At some point, the victim appeared to turn around and get upset at the father, apparently bumping into him, police said.

After the brief interaction, the victim turned back around, continuing his game, when the father confronted him verbally, though officers could not hear what was said on the recording. When El Moussa saw this interaction, he “charged at” the victim and shoved him.

“Due to the angle of the footage, it is not certain, but appeared that when [redacted] went for the take down, he was struck with the knee of El Moussa,” the report said. Someone whose name was redacted “then fell to the floor and El Moussa mounted his back and threw 3 more strikes with his fist to the head of [redacted] before getting up and walking away.”

The citation also ordered El Moussa to appear in court on Sept. 4.

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.