Ben and Erin Napier’s Journey: College Sweethearts to HGTV Stars With 2 Daughters and a New Show
The ‘Home Town’ stars' journey from college sweethearts to renovation royalty is pure magic
Key Takeaways
- Erin and Ben Napier from HGTV's 'Home Town' first met when they were in college.
- Since getting married, they have welcomed two children and grown their brand.
- See the premiere of their new show, 'Home Town: Inn This Together,' on May 10.
Ben and Erin Napier, the heart of the HGTV hit series Home Town, have shared their skills, chemistry, love and family with the world since their show premiered back in 2016. If you’ve loved what they’ve brought to the screen so far, then there’s a good chance you’re going to fall hard for their exciting new spinoff series, Home Town: Inn This Together. This exciting new chapter will consist of four episodes and follow Erin, Ben, and their friends Jim, Mallorie and Josh as they work to renovate and restore the Kress Building in downtown Laurel, Mississippi—transforming it into a stunning inn. As we prepare for this fun new venture, which will hit screens on May 10, take a look at the sweet love story of Erin and Ben—one full of adventures and exciting new projects at every turn!
Ben and Erin Napier relationship
While Ben and Erin have built quite the empire side-by-side over the years, their love story had humble beginnings, the duo meeting when they were just kids in college. As Erin remembers it, Ben was extremely popular during their days attending Jones County Junior College, and while she had met him briefly during their time at school, it wasn’t until she interviewed him for their school’s yearbook that things clicked.
“He was in every club and organization, he was loved by everyone who met him and had a group of friends that followed him wherever he went. We first met (briefly, at McDonald’s actually) in May 2004, and I loved watching him from a distance and our occasional ‘hello’ exchanges on campus,” Erin reflected back on in a blog post from 2010. “I secretly admired him and I wanted so much to be his friend, to be important to him like some of the girls that we were mutually friends with. He was the center of attention no matter where he went, and I kept a cool distance anytime we would speak—I didn’t want him to think I cared for him one way or the other.”
In 2007, after a few years of dating, Ben got down on one knee and by 2008 the couple got married. Since then, they’ve been building their life together and sharing their creativity and talents with the world side-by-side.
“We’ve been together longer than we’ve been apart. We learned how to communicate together. It’s effortless now,” Erin told UsWeekly back in 2025. “Some people say, ‘Oh, I could never work with my spouse,’ but it may be that you’ve never actually tried,” Ben continued. “If you go to your parents’ house and you’re only there for a couple days, you tend to start getting on each other’s nerves, but if you’re together for an extended period, you move beyond that, and you get into this groove together.”
Ben and Erin Napier debunk divorce rumors
Being in the public eye, Erin and Ben are not immune to social media gossip and chatter, especially involving their marriage, and back in 2025, Erin took to Instagram to set the record straight on their rumored divorce. “Can’t believe I even have to say this but NO, the clickbait articles that we are splitting up are not real, y’all,” she wrote on her Instagram story, as reported by UsWeekly. “They are AI generated in India or something and don’t even make any kind of sense. Y’all are smarter than this.”
Do Erin and Ben Napier have kids?
Erin and Ben welcomed their first child, a daughter named Helen, back in 2018. In 2021, their daughter Mae was born. While Erin has loved the life she built with her family, in her memoir Make Something Good Today, she got candid about her fears associated with motherhood. “Motherhood had long been my greatest fear—and a shameful one at that. But I didn’t want to be afraid of it. Every single night, when I turned out the bedside light, I asked myself, ‘Will I ever be brave enough? For all of it?'”
Luckily, she found the courage she was searching for. Today, watching Erin embrace motherhood with Helen and Mae is a beautiful testament to the power of love conquering fear. As the Napiers continue to build their dreams together—from raising their daughters to creating their newest inn—they remind us that the best chapters of life are often the ones we write with the people we love most by our side.
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