Joanna Gaines Reveals She Used to Be ‘Really Shy’ and ‘Longed to Be Understood’ in High School

Even though Joanna Gaines may seem extremely confident and secure now, it wasn’t always that way as she recently revealed the tough time she had trying to be accepted in high school.

The Fixer Upper alum, 40, opened up in the latest Magnolia Journal issue, a publication she and her husband, Chip Gaines, started a few years ago, and discussed what she was truly like as a student. “I was really shy in high school and throughout college,” the designer said. “It would bother me when people would mistake my quietness as being uninterested, or even snobby … Because I longed to be understood, I was conscious to look for what was genuine in other people.”

Joanna added that everything changed when she crossed paths with her now husband, 44. “When I met Chip, I watched how easily he could change personalities depending on who we were around,” she said. “I could see that it was one of Chip’s gifts to draw out people’s strengths, but I closed myself off from that possibility because I was still trying to figure out who this guy really was.” And the duo obviously clicked as they have been married since 2003 and now have five kids: Drake, 14, Ella Rose, 12, Duke, 10, Emmie Kay, 8, and baby Crew, 6 months.

A lot has changed for Joanna today, as she has spent years in front of the camera so it certainly seems she has gotten a lot more comfortable with herself. And while the television pair may have recently wrapped up their popular HGTV show, it’s a move that Chip is completely alright with as he once admitted he felt “caged” and “trapped” by Fixer Upper. “Breaking out of that has been liberating,” he told Cowboys & Indians last December. “TV was a funny thing for me. I’m an authentic, sincere person. But the more staged something becomes, or the more required something becomes, it boxes me up. Jo and I couldn’t figure it out.”

Well, we just hope that we’ll be seeing the pair back on the small screen soon.