Chip and Joanna Gaines’ 5 youngsters by no means requested to be public figures, so the previous HGTV stars attempt their finest to guard their privateness. For essentially the most half, they chorus from sharing their kids on social media. Nonetheless, there have been uncommon occasions we have seen Chip and Joanna’s oldest daughter, Ella Gaines, through the years, which is true for her siblings as properly. These little glimpses have given perception into the lavish lives of Chip and Joanna’s youngsters. Due to these, we all know fairly a bit about Ella’s persona, pursuits, and future targets. 

The previous “Fixer Higher” stars know they’re privileged, however that is all of the extra motive to guard their kids in any respect prices. That is why Chip and Joanna convey up their youngsters in a social media-free family. “Our home rule is you get social media the summer season earlier than you go to varsity …. so 18,” she revealed on In the present day in 2024. It is not all the time simple to implement the rule. “[It] is tough, I believe as a result of all their different buddies have it,” she stated. However they’re dedicated to it.

As they become older, the children are higher capable of perceive the explanations for the rule and settle for it higher. “I really feel like for us it is sort of a type of issues the place we will say, ‘You might have these different issues which might be actually nice. Our life is a bit completely different and we care about this particular factor,” Joanna defined. Nonetheless, the proud mother and father cannot all the time include their pleasure over their kids’s accomplishments, providing us snippets that paint a fairly first rate image.

Ella is not the primary Gaines child to go away the nest, however she’s the primary to need to unfold her wings far and large. Whereas her brother Drake left house a 12 months earlier than her, he selected to attend the College of Mary Hardin-Baylor, only a 45-minute drive from their hometown of Waco, Texas. Ella, alternatively, desires nothing to do together with her house state. “We won’t anticipate her to resolve. Ella has considered Korea, she’s considered sunny Southern California,” Chip Gaines informed In the present day in Might 2025.

Ella, who graduated from highschool that month, desires to carve her personal path, and that requires leaving the very lengthy shadow solid by her well-known mother and father behind. “She’s not going to be within the Central Texas space when she goes on to her subsequent chapter. She appears excited to have the ability to unfold her wings and do one thing very distinctive and out of doors the bubble,” he stated. As laborious as it is going to be to have her so removed from them, Chip and Joanna Gaines assist Ella’s resolution to go daring. “It is very the sky is the restrict with Ella,” Chip stated.

Although she’s already despatched a child off to varsity, Joanna remains to be tremendous emotional. However that is served as motivation for her to make one of the best of the final summer season she has with Ella nonetheless at house. “I will be absorbing this season one of the best I understand how—beginning with this summer season bouquet from the backyard,” she wrote on Instagram. 

Ella Gaines takes after her mom in additional methods than one. Joanna Gaines’ well-known eye for turning any house into the coziest haven seemingly handed on to her eldest daughter. From a younger age, Ella was into arts and crafts, a passion Joanna typically confirmed off on social media. In April 2016, Joanna revealed Ella, then 9, and Emmie, then 6, had been taking stitching classes for a 12 months. “For the previous couple of weeks they’ve been speaking a couple of shock they’re making. They lastly completed this week and I simply love this quilt,” she captioned an Instagram publish that featured the women studying to their stuffed animals whereas sitting on their masterpiece (seen above).

However Ella’s inventive pursuits stretch into the kitchen as properly. Joanna typically gushed about her daughter’s baking abilities to her social media followers. In 2015, shared how Ella and Emmie typically joined her for lengthy baking classes. “Their favourite part- the flour. Mine? The dough, consuming it,” she wrote on Instagram, including an image that confirmed solely the women’ fingers on the desk subsequent to some cookies. By 2018, Ella had turned her abilities right into a aspect enterprise.

“Her new summer season enterprise is promoting baked items on the workplace when she goes to work with me,” the proud mama captioned an Instagram publish. Joanna detailed that she and Ella had stayed up late the earlier evening making banana pudding and chocolate chip cookies. “She’s going to make a heck of a enterprise girl,” Joanna gushed. 

From her hobbies {and professional} pursuits, it is clear Ella seems as much as Joanna Gaines lots. It seems Joanna additionally pertains to her daughter on completely different ranges. “We like to go to antiques retailers, plant retailers and go get espresso — that is our rhythm,” she informed Individuals in July 2025. That is why she feels Ella’s going away to varsity is tougher than sending Drake off. “I sort of really feel like I am shedding a buddy in my on a regular basis life,” she shared.

She has been attempting to organize one of the best she will, however she is aware of she’ll wrestle. “It appears like what’s coming this summer season will probably be a tidal wave of feelings, and I’m not going to brace; I’ll stand there and take it with him,” she stated. This is not the primary time Joanna opens up about how a lot of herself she sees in her oldest daughter. In 2019, she revealed that every one 4 of her older youngsters had entrepreneurial pursuits in their very own proper, although she identified that her oldest daughter took after her extra strongly. 

Whereas Duke was extra within the manufacturing aspect, and Duke and Emmie have been extra customer-oriented, Ella was all the time extra versatile. “Ella is like me,” she informed Individuals in a 2019 interview. “I believe she’ll comply with in my footsteps and have her hand in quite a lot of issues. Proper now she desires to prepare dinner, be a lead designer and have a donut truck.”

Ella Gaines might need to step out of her mother and father’ shadow, however that does not imply she’s above utilizing her time in it to make some features. Earlier than Chip and Joanna Gaines took a three-month break from Magnolia in mid-2024, Ella interned for them. “Considered one of my favourite moments that was so pivotal for me as a mom, but additionally as a enterprise proprietor, was my daughter, my oldest daughter, was in on quite a lot of these conversations earlier than our break in June, that I used to be having with the staff,” Joanna revealed on the “Enterprise of House” podcast in April 2025 (through Home Lovely).

Within the Might interview with In the present day, Chip revealed that Ella desires to go to varsity for enterprise and digital design, a area that focuses on the design of interfaces. Whereas she drew inspiration from her mother and father’ work in house reno and inside design, Ella’s pursuits recommend she desires to use her data in a barely completely different space. Chip and Joanna have emphasised that Ella does not need to financial institution on her final identify. “She’s enthusiastic about going someplace and simply being identified for her,” Joanna stated within the Individuals interview.

She continued: “She’s like, ‘I do not need anybody understanding that you just’re… I simply need to go and be myself.” Whereas she is glad she may impart her knowledge to her daughter throughout her internship on the Magnolia staff, Joanna additionally seems ahead to studying from Ella. “She’s about to see some stuff,” she stated. “She’s going to show us stuff.”

Chip and Joanna Gaines are endlessly happy with Ella and her ambitions, however she’s nonetheless only a common teenager. She proved that on promenade evening, when she broke the one rule her mother and father established for her: that she needed to be house by midnight. “She blew previous that,” he stated within the In the present day Might interview. He wasn’t tremendous mad, although. “However what do you do? What do you do with this 18-year-old human being that’s now legally an grownup? She may serve within the military if she needed to, and right here I’m explaining that she needs to be again at 12 o’clock.”

Nonetheless, Chip was astounded that Ella thought midnight was too early a curfew. “Once I was a child, midnight was actually late,” he added. “I assumed that may have given her loads of time to do the whole lot she’d need to do at promenade, however apparently, it wasn’t sufficient.” He mustn’t have been all that involved, contemplating he fell asleep by 9 p.m. and took no discover of when Ella lastly arrived house. “It was positively within the wee hours of the following morning,” he stated.

This wasn’t the primary time he had a style of the truth that his little woman is an grownup. In 2024, Ella additionally exercised her first civil responsibility as an American citizen. “Proud papa.. #FirstTimeVoter,” Chip captioned an Instagram publish (seen above) that featured him with Ella (together with her face hidden by an emoji) with “I voted” stickers on their shirts.