For Jasmine Roth, mornings in her Utah home are less about perfection and more about pace—one set by a five-year-old, a one-year-old and a calendar that never quite looks the same from one week to the next. “Every day is a new adventure,” she laughs. “I think any parent who is going through it—we have a kindergartner, and we have a one-year-old—can relate. Word on the street is this isn’t even the hardest time, but I feel like we’re in it.”
It’s a refreshingly candid look at life behind the scenes of one of HGTV’s most beloved stars, who entered Season 5 of HELP! I Wrecked My House this fall with a new state, new challenges and the same down-to-earth relatability that made her a household name. Despite the fame, the filming schedule, the design projects and the content creation, Roth insists she’s also “a full-time stay-at-home mom.” Her days fluctuate between job sites and playrooms. “Sometimes there’s cameras, sometimes there aren’t,” she says. “There’s always competing priorities. Some days it works, and some days it sure doesn’t.”
Unlike many reality hosts, Roth doesn’t “turn it on” when the cameras arrive. Her show follows the same rhythms as her real job. “The good thing for me is that my show is very much the same as my life. It’s all intertwined,” she explains. “I’m meeting with the same people. I’m doing literally the same exact stuff. I’m on a job site. I’m troubleshooting. It’s just: ‘Okay, there’s a camera; there’s not a camera.’”
That authenticity is part of why viewers connect with her, and why she’s been a fixture on the network for seven seasons across multiple shows. But even with experience, being on camera has brought its own learning curve—one many women will understand: comparison.
“Comparison is a thief of joy,” she says. “It’s hard not to compare yourself, especially when there are so many amazing folks on HGTV.” She recalls filming Rock the Block while six weeks postpartum, standing next to her co-judge and friend Mina Starsiak-Hawk, who happened to be “in the best shape” of her life. “I was pumping, I was wearing a diaper…I’m like, ‘Why am I here right now with you?’” she says, laughing.
It became a moment of compassion—for herself, for her body and for the different seasons women move through. “It’s just a good reminder to always be very graceful with ourselves and our bodies.”
Even makeup has been part of the evolution. Roth didn’t wear any on her show for years, eventually learning from her makeup artist before moving to Utah. “Six months later, I called her and said, ‘Hey, remember how you taught me to do my makeup? I can’t do it. It’s too much!’” After a second simplified lesson, she now does her own makeup for the show. Sometimes, she says, she sees that “maybe I didn’t blend enough, so it looked like somebody dropped me in the cheek.” But she’s learned to keep it in perspective: “If the thoughts creep in, I’m like, ‘No. That’s not fair. You were nursing, you were in your car, pumping that day. You look fine.’”
While Roth is open about the challenges of balancing motherhood and a demanding career, she’s just as open about the small habits that keep her grounded. “I try really hard to prioritize my sleep,” she says. “It’s not fun or sexy or cool, but it’s so important—especially as I’m 41. I just don’t bounce back the way I used to.”
Her workouts now happen at her physical therapist’s office to keep her competitive nature in check. “If I do a video by myself, I overdo it,” she admits. Instead, she focuses on functional fitness that involves “training to pick up my kid or sit down slowly so I don’t wake up the baby.”
And then there’s massage: “I believe in massage. I really believe in massage! My husband is always like, ‘Must be nice,’ but it’s something I actually need to keep myself relaxed, or even force myself to relax. If I set aside an hour for myself at home, I don’t really do it. If I’m forced to lie face down with nothing to look at, I actually relax.”
As she looks ahead to a new year, Roth pauses to reflect on just how much can shift in 12 months. Every holiday season, she writes a poem to accompany her family’s Christmas card—a tradition she documents in a personal keepsake book. “I was starting this year’s poem and realized how much has changed,” she says. Last winter, she had a premature newborn, a half-finished house and a brand-new life in a state that felt freezing and unfamiliar. “I was hanging on by a thread.”
This year feels entirely different. “Seeing how much progress we can make in a year…it’s a good reminder that no matter how hard something is, this time next year, I could literally be a totally different person.”
