HGTV Star Carmeon Hamilton Launches ‘Reno My Rental’ While Mourning Husband Marcus
Published Sept. 18 2021, 3:51 p.m. ET
HGTV breakout star Carmeon Hamilton is hyping up the premiere of her new Discovery+ show, Reno My Rental—which streams on Discovery+ starting today, Saturday, Sept. 18 — while acknowledging the series premiere comes during a “very difficult time” for her.
The premiere comes three weeks after Carmeon’s husband, Marcus Hamilton — who appears frequently in Reno My Rental — was killed in an Aug. 28 motorcycle accident in Memphis, Tenn.
Marcus “succumbed to his injuries after being hit by an intoxicated driver,” Carmeon told Instagram followers.
Carmeon announced the news in an August. 29 Instagram post that she updated a week later “to reflect the actual cause of Marcus’s death.”
“To my extended Internet family,” she wrote in the post. “It is with deep sorrow and an eternally broken heart that I tell you that the love of my life, Marcus Hamilton, has passed away. I was alerted by MPD late last night that Marcus succumbed to his injuries after being hit by an intoxicated driver while on his motorcycle yesterday afternoon.”
Police said that Marcus was knocked from his motorcycle after a motorist traveling in the opposite direction turned into Marcus’s path, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Marcus, 37, died by the time emergency personnel arrived at the scene.
The other driver was arrested and charged with failure to yield with serious injury/death, driving under the influence of intoxicants/drugs, and public intoxication, the Commercial Appeal reported.
Marcus, a Nike executive, met Carmeon while they were students at the University of Central Arkansas, after asking around for someone to braid his hair, the newspaper added.
The couple later married, and after they moved to Memphis in 2013, Carmeon launched her Nubi Interiors design business. Earlier this year, she won the HGTV show Design Star: Next Gen, and over the summer, she filmed Reno My Rental.
Carmeon had to figure out her and her son’s “next step” after Marcus’s death.
“I’m no stranger to loss, but this loss brings something beyond pain. Something I can’t describe,” Carmeon wrote in the Instagram post. “I’m now missing a major part of myself, and that void seems to grow more and more every second.”
She also talked about the couple’s 12-year-old son, Davin. “I can’t bring myself to figure out Davin’s and my next step, because there shouldn’t be a need for one,” she explained. “But in the midst of this immense pain came a wave of support from the community of people that we’ve worked so hard to build. They are the only reason I have the strength and ability to put these words in writing.”
She went on: “Thank you all for being one of the best parts of our love story and loudly encouraging us to be the passionately flawed humans we were, living a life well lived. I only ask for grace and privacy as my family and I navigate this extraordinary loss. I love you peeps.”
Now she’s thanking her fans and her Memphis community for “truly stepping up and supporting me.”
In the lead-up to Reno My Rental, Carmeon issued statements about the show but skipped interviews. “Carmeon is not quite ready to do interviews again,” a Discovery spokesperson told the Commercial Appeal.
But the designer did post on Instagram on Friday, Sept. 17, to tout the new show’s arrival and to thank her many supporters.
“Thank you so much to all of you, especially my Memphis community, for truly stepping up and supporting me by helping spread the word of my show’s premiere during a very difficult time for me,” she wrote. “It truly means the world to me, and I’m forever grateful.”