In case 2024 didn’t already start off with enough good-natured home renovations spearheaded by loving couples, HGTV is here for it. The latest season of Home Town is set to arrive, with “never apart” couple Ben and Erin Napier ready to bring their restoration skills back to fans watching on cable or streaming with a Max subscription. The new eps were filmed following Ben’s surgical operation in early 2023, while also coinciding with his weight-loss journey, and the recovery process was a bit of a struggle in some ways.
For one, Ben Napier was understandably prescribed pain medication to help ease the process of rehabbing after having surgery on his rotator cuff. And they apparently made him quite loopy, which he fully realized was an issue while giving a public speech at a Southern Baptist college several days after the surgery. Speaking with People, he called it quite the wild experience, saying he “could not keep a train of thought” while on stage, though wasn’t lacking in confidence.
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As someone who “never drank” or had any recreational experience with drug use, he wasn’t used to the feeling. And amusingly enough, Erin Napier revealed one episode includes a FaceTime video call between the couple that her hubby has no memory of filming. As he jokingly put it:
I don't know. I do not remember this FaceTime at all because I was on drugs.
One can assume that it’s a normal enough chat, and doesn’t include Ben Napier going all bananas in any way. I mean, I’m hoping that he’s inspired to break into song at one point, but that hope will likely go unfulfilled.
Even though there seemingly weren’t any huge concerns about Ben’s pain medication, that doesn’t mean Erin was totally worry-free while episodes were being filmed. She explained:
It still worries me when he’s like, ‘No, I can do this.’ He’s still not supposed to lift really heavy things with his left arm. I get nervous.
Considering his role on the show, Ben Napier understandably had troubles curbing his efforts when it came to lending a hand out around the homes they worked on. His first instinct to “jump in and help” had to be curbed, but he thankfully made it through the whole season without any further complications affecting his rotator cuff.
Despite the fact that his recovery wasn’t exactly a quick process, audiences shouldn’t expect to see the hosts talking about it week in and week out. Erin Napier explained that the decision was made to limit how much the surgery and healing played into episodes. In her words:
There’s only one episode where his shoulder is a part of the story. At the beginning, when he had the surgery, that was the episode we were working on and so after that it has to just not exist, ‘cause it gets a little redundant to have shoulder problems in every episode for a whole season.
Quite a big year for Ben Napier on the physical front, between his surgery and his focus on fitness and transformation, for which he lost nearly 100 lbs. Here’s hoping the rest of 2024 goes as swimmingly as possible for both him and the rest of the Napier family.
Check out the lizard-filled trailer for the new season below!
Home Town is set to air new episodes on HGTV every Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. ET.
