Tragic details about Drew and Jonathan Scott from Property Brothers

Drew and Jonathan Scott may have found fame and fortune on their hit HGTV show “Property Brothers,” but their path to the top wasn’t a walk in the park. Along the way, the twin brothers from Canada faced professional and personal adversities that could have derailed them. Before starting their show, Jonathan and Drew pursued different career paths, but they didn’t pan out and both were under great financial strain.

But everything worked out for the best. It was thanks to the difficult situation they found themselves in that the brothers decided to join forces and dive headfirst into real estate, culminating in the lucrative careers they are known for. But they also encounter difficult times in their personal lives. After a heartbreaking divorce that took a toll on his mental health, Jonathan found love again with Zooey Deschanel and revealed that he learned valuable lessons from it.

Drew, on the other hand, struggled with infertility as his wife’s health problems posed an obstacle to their attempts to have children. Her IVF journey was long and confusing but had a happy ending. Drew and Lisa Phan had a son and a daughter, fulfilling their long dream of starting a family together. Although Jonathan has no children of his own, he was the proud fur dad of two dogs who unfortunately died within a year and a few months of each other. Jonathan and Drew have a lot to be thankful for, but they also faced some challenges.

Jonathan and Drew Scott may be worth $100 million each, but there was a time when their bank accounts painted a different picture. Before they made it big on HGTV, they were just trying to make ends meet as best they could. For his part, Jonathan, who dreamed of becoming the next David Copperfield, invested all his resources into a career as a magician. “I had built all these props, had this trailer custom made, and leased a truck — I was determined to make it a success,” he told People in 2017.

But Jonathan didn’t just invest money. He also put all his trust in the wrong person who stole all of his expensive equipment. “My Spidey senses were tingling, but working with this person seemed like a good opportunity, and so I overlooked it,” he told Forbes in 2017. Jonathan felt he had no choice but to file for bankruptcy, a decision he regrets to this day. His situation plunged him into depression.

Drew’s financial problems stemmed from his pursuit of acting. “I went to Vancouver to pursue this and took acting classes, networked and did whatever I needed to do to make sure I was seen,” he told People. But he racked up $100,000 in debt along the way. Amidst their financial struggles, Drew and Jonathan focused on real estate. “Now we have done the due diligence and strengthened our financial position,” Jonathan said.

Jonathan Scott’s first marriage ended after just two years. In 2007, he married Kelsy Ully, a flight crew planner, whom he had dated for more than four years. “There was kind of a rush,” he told People in March 2017. “She wanted to get married on 7/7/07.” Things started falling apart early on. They began to drift apart shortly after leaving Canada for Las Vegas, where he continued his career as a magician and she worked as a waitress while aspiring to become a model.

Jonathan and Ully tried to work on their marriage through couples therapy, but it didn’t change anything. “The pain ultimately outlasted the marriage,” he wrote in “It Takes Two: Our Story,” the memoir he co-wrote with Drew Scott (via Country Living). The divorce was not easy for him to cope with. “I spent six and a half years with someone and it didn’t work. Anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship knows how hard that is,” he told People in August 2017.

His mental health was particularly affected. “I’m no longer dealing with the breakup, but for too long, too dark a period of my life, that was practically all I did,” he wrote. Luckily he had his twin brother by his side. Drew has made it his mission to make sure Jonathan doesn’t become isolated. “I said, ‘No, you’re not sitting at home. Get your butt out of here. You come with me and we hang out,'” he recalled to People.

Even before Drew Scott and Linda Phan got married in 2018, they knew they wanted to start a family. When they moved to Los Angeles last year and began designing their new home, the couple already imagined having little ones running around. “I wanted to make sure this house was suitable for children,” Scott told People in 2017. He was even willing to make personal sacrifices to achieve this. “I’m ready to give up my craft room for the nursery,” he added.

But the journey turned out to be more difficult than expected. After unsuccessfully trying to conceive, Scott and Phan sought the expertise of a fertility endocrinologist who helped them manage Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid. Together they decided to try IUI and IVF. “I think the whole thing was so lost for us. We tried for years, we wanted to have kids for years and we weren’t successful,” Scott told People in 2021.

After two years of treatment, the couple announced that they were expecting a baby in December 2021. Their son was born in May 2022. “Our lives have changed forever,” Scott captioned an Instagram post. “Welcome to the world, Parker James.” Phan and Scott expanded their family in June 2022 when they gave Parker a baby sister. “Our family of three has become four! Piper Rae, I love you with all my heart,” Scott celebrated on Instagram.

Jonathan and Drew Scott don’t hide that they’re attached at the hip, but “Property Brothers” fans know they’re just as close to their older brother JD Scott. For more than a year, they must have felt powerless as they watched JD try to get to the bottom of a mysterious health condition that was baffling doctors. Between 2018 and 2019, JD experienced strange symptoms when the temperature rose above 70 degrees. “Suddenly I felt like my skin was burning, I would faint, and sometimes I would be out of action for days,” he explained in a July 2019 Instagram video.

Doctors initially considered a lupus diagnosis, but rejected that possibility after several months of testing. The next hypothesis was a brain aneurysm. After a series of MRI scans, they discovered that JD had suffered from not one, but two conditions. However, not everyone agreed. At the time, JD had not yet received a definitive diagnosis, but a doctor suspected it might be more than one illness. “He said to me, ‘It’s possible that you’re not suffering from one thing, but that it’s a few things that are causing these symptoms,'” he said.

That turned out to be partly true. Shortly after sharing the video, JD learned that he had a gastrointestinal infection and possible fluoroquinolone toxicity from antibiotics. But the biggest culprit was probably acute mercury poisoning. “I’m so grateful to finally have real answers and direction,” he wrote in a 2019 Facebook post.

Before Jonathan Scott brought Zooey Deschanel’s children into his life, he considered himself a father to two dogs. “These are my children, Gracie and Stewie,” Jonathan said in an OK! Magazine video after Drew Scott correctly guessed that his favorite animals were Chihuahuas and Yorkshire Terriers. He suffered a serious blow when the youngest of the two died in November 2022. “I said goodbye to my sweet Stewie today. He brought joy into my life for over 13 years and that will be fondly remembered by all of us,” he mourned on Instagram.

Just over a year later, Jonathan experienced similar pain. After adopting Gracie in the mid-2000s, he finally had to say goodbye to his beloved black Chihuahua in February 2024. “I am heartbroken. My sweet Gracie died last night. What wonderful 17 years you gave me. “I’m always in my heart,” he captioned an Instagram post featuring photos of the two together over the years.

Just as Jonathan embraced her children as his own, his fiancée did the same with his fur babies. “Our sweet Gracie was the most wonderful puppy. We are so sad to have to say goodbye,” Deschanel commented on the post. Jonathan’s pooches were even famous on social media and had their own Instagram account. It is unclear whether Jonathan ran the site himself or whether it was a fansite. Regardless, it shows that Gracie and Stewie had a huge impact on Jonathan’s life and beyond.