As Christine Quinn braces herself for the next ugly stage of her custody war with ex-husband Christian Richard, the Selling Sunset alum is opening up about the horror he put her through during their traumatic marriage and breakup, and a source exclusively tells Life & Style she’s now bravely and successfully rebuilding her life from the bottom up with son Christian Georges back home in Texas.
“Moving back home to Texas was the best decision she could have made,” the insider says. “It wasn’t easy to leave all her friends and her life in L.A. behind, but being near her family has given her the support and strength she needed to start to heal from her toxic marriage and all the abuse she suffered.”
The breakout star of the Netflix real estate show married Christian Richard, whose real name is Christian Dumontet, in December 2019 and welcomed a baby boy shortly afterward. Everything seemed to be as right as rain in Christine’s idyllic life in Los Angeles with her hubby and son, but there was plenty of trouble brewing just beneath the surface. Fans were shocked when her businessman husband was arrested at their Hollywood Hills home in March 2024 for allegedly throwing a bag containing a glass bottle that hit their toddler. He was put on a diversion program and ordered to complete a counseling course in September, requiring him to attend domestic violence, anger management and narcotics anonymous classes for a year, while keeping his distance from Christine and making restitution.
According to the 36-year-old real estate expert, “Everyone sees the incident that occurred, but this is something that had been going on for a while.” In the wake of the arrest and subsequent split, Christine gave more details about Dumontet’s behavior leading up to the dramatic finale. She told People in February that her ex had been controlling and possessive for years.
“There were times where my husband, literally, where I had to go to work and he would lay himself under my car,” she alleged, adding she would “sit for an hour” in her car until she “missed a meeting and gave up and would go back inside.” In a move common among abusers, she claims he also tried to isolate her socially by cutting off access to her devices. “People really don’t know this. I was hacked out of my entire life. I was stripped of my entire life overnight — I literally had nothing. And it was dehumanizing,” Christine recalled.
The end ultimately came when Dumontet allegedly threw that glass bottle that hit their son, though he denied there was any violence in the relationship. “There are certain things that I could tolerate, and it got to a point where it was affecting my son, and that wasn’t OK. I was like, ‘OK, I can deal with this, I’m an adult, but bringing him into the chaos and everything that kind of ensued, I was like, ‘No, this is not OK,’” she declared.
Moving away from the place where it all went down and settling into a cozy life in Dallas with Christian Georges, 3, has “truly been good for her soul,” the source says.
“She’s living in a beautiful home that she loves and more importantly it is her sanctuary now. She and her son feel so safe and at peace there, which is everything to her. He’s the most precious boy, very joyful and the center of her world.”
“She wants to be the best she can be for his sake and hers, she will certainly have another chapter in the spotlight, but for now she’s been taking her time to get a strong foundation for her and her son.”
