EXCLUSIVE: HGTV Host Ty Pennington Lays Bare Intense Drama on New ‘Battle on the Beach’—Admitting Season 5 Is Filled With ‘Breakdowns’

HGTV has revamped its “Battle on the Beach” competition series—and it seems the wave of change washing over the show's new season brought with it “many breakdowns” by contestants, as well as swells of emotion in its superstar mentors.

The fifth season of the hit series will see “Rock the Block” host Ty Pennington returning as one of three team advisers, alongside two new co-hosts: “100 Day Dream Home” star Mika Kleinschmidt and “Renovation Resort” star Sarah Baeumler, who previously appeared on “Battle on the Beach” as a judge alongside her husband, Bryan Baeumler. 

Baeumler and Kleinschmidt replace former series co-stars Alison Victoria and Taniya Nayak.

“Renovation Aloha” stars Tristyn and Kamohai Kalama have also stepped in to judge the work of three teams handpicked by Pennington, Kleinschmidt, and Baeumler as they race to renovate run-down vacation rentals in Garden City, SC, over the course of just seven weeks.

Ahead of the June 1 premiere of the latest season, the show's stars have opened up about the many very emotional moments that both they and the contestants experienced during filming—with Pennington going as far as to joke that his team should have designed a special "crying room" to provide them all a private space to "cry and scream" during the complicated process.

Pennington’s contenders are Michelle and Sydney, a mother-daughter duo from Nebraska. Kleinschmidt is teaming up with Josiah and Anna, a young married couple from Maryland, while Baeumler has her money on Steven and Angelina, who are parents of four from Connecticut.

As always, each pair has pocketed the same budget to remodel their respective property. This time, it’s a $100,000 sum to overhaul the biggest beachside abodes in “Battle on the Beach” history.

New this season, winners of the weekly challenges are allowed to take the weekly $3,000 prize money to use immediately in the makeover or gamble on a win and add $6,000 to the $50,000 final jackpot. 

In a destination where weekly rental rates average $1,900 to $2,800—and even up to $7,000 during the area’s high season—tensions among the teams also run high, and Pennington reveals to Realtor.com® that emotions boiled over often.

“There's so many breakdowns with my team that I thought we should actually design a crying room that you could, while you were on vacation, just go in there and just cry and scream,” he suggests, while acknowledging that remodeling with a relative isn’t easy.

“I don't think I could ever really do a show with a family member because you would have to edit everything out,” he teases. “It would just be like, ‘Bleep, bleep, bleep.’”

The pressure also got the best of Baeumler, and she recounts to Realtor.com the moment she reached a breaking point during production.

“I personally had a bit of a breakdown filming ‘Battle on the Beach’ where I needed to bring Ty and Mika aside and just sort of unload a little bit on them and take from Ty his experience of being a mentor,” she shares, before detailing the initial struggle to find her voice in her new role.

“I remember I stood on the beach with Mika and Ty, and I'm like, ‘Help, I don't know how to navigate this. I need some advice. I need some guidance ... [on] where to push back and when to sort of say, Hey, I think you're going in the wrong direction. Can we pull this back before it's too late?’ Because I sort of sat back and was like, ‘This is their decision. I am here to support and guide them,’ and it just started to take its toll.”

According to Kleinschmidt, who has won “Rock the Block,” the “Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge,” and the “100 Day Hotel Challenge,” those low points have become an expected part of the renovation competition process.

“It's always a breakdown before a breakthrough, so if you do a competition series and you don't have a moment that you have a breakdown, you probably don't care enough, or you're not working hard enough,” she states. 

Between their professional pride in their design work and their emotional investment in their teammates, Baeumler, Kleinschmidt, and Pennington care very much and work very hard to help their pair of players in this game. But ultimately, the HGTV stars learned to let the “Battle on the Beach” teams steer their own ship.

“This is $50,000 at stake for them, so this has to be them in the driver's seat, and we’re kind of like the GPS navigation. But sometimes, they might want to take the right turn before we give the direction, and that's OK because it really is their opportunity to shine,” explains Kleinschmidt.

"We're there for them when they need us ... but this is their platform, and it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we don't want to overstep.”

All teams were tasked with increasing the rental value of their vacation home, and while Pennington points out the obvious upgrades that always pay off, he also underscores the importance of creativity.

“If you can add a bathroom, if you can convert a room that didn't have a window into a bedroom, if you can make changes where you do add value ... but just like in all the design shows, there's still a design aesthetic," he begins.

"It's that moment you walk in for the first time ... that's a visual stimulation, and as much added value as you can do in square footage, I think that's why we love these design shows—that visual stimulation,” he continues.

When asked about the current fan backlash to the winning home on the most recent season of “Rock the Block,” which crowned Kim Wolfe and Chelsea Meissner champions despite the public perception that other contestants added more appraised value to their properties, Pennington says style is subjective.

“Sometimes people make really bold choices, and I think that's great,” he says. “But you know, watching people's comments, sometimes the most conservative choices are the most popular, and so it's really interesting to me. It's like art. Like, who's to say who's a better painter, Picasso, or the guy without the ear?”

For Kleinschmidt, an objectively poor design decision is one that scares guests away. While staying in a short-term rental during filming of “Battle on the Beach,” the HGTV pro recalls coming face-to-face with a rather unsettling decor accessory.

“I was right on the water, and there was a cute little fireplace, and on Day 1, I checked in at night, I'm like, ‘OK, I'm by myself,’ so that was cool. But then I noticed these weird, like, gargoyle statues in the fireplace,” she says. “They were creepy as can be.

“This was a really nice rental, but why they left that there, I don't understand,” adds Kleinschmidt.

Her advice: Don't make a place “so personal that when somebody comes in there that's on vacation, they're going to be like, "What is this?”

After staying afloat in the latest “Battle on the Beach” competition, and as spring surges toward summer, all three superstar mentors have certainly earned their own day at the beach. 

“I love the ocean; it's the best,” says Pennington. "Feeling salt, not only [on] your hair, on your bodies, it's the best, even my dogs love it.”

“I just got back from Aruba yesterday, so I just washed the salt and sand out of my hair,” adds Kleinschmidt.

“I’m due for a vacation, I’m definitely due,” says Baeumler. “I’m still filming right now, but sometime this summer, I'm going to take a break.”

'Battle on the Beach' premieres on June 1 at 9 p.m. on HGTV.