Courtney Stodden calls child marriage « America’s dirty little secret » as her marriage to actor Doug Hutchison takes center stage in an installment of Lifetime’s « Ripped from the Headlines. »
Courtney Stodden slammed child marriage as “America’s dirty little secret” as she revealed she was the “breadwinner” in her marriage at just 16 years old.
Stodden, who told the story of her marriage to actor Doug Hutchison in Lifetime’s “Ripped from the Headlines,” revealed her role in the marriage “seemed to shift” very quickly as she realized she was making money for a man older than her father.
“Realizing everything that has happened to me in present time has been a lot to process. When I first hit the spotlight as a young girl, my brain wasn’t developed yet. And I had a certain image of what my life was. I thought I knew everything. I mean, what kid doesn’t at 16,” Stodden explained to Fox News Digital. “Then as things started to escalate quite quickly – and my role seemed to shift in the marriage quite quickly – I became the breadwinner.”
“People have a misconception that I married for money as a child, which they like to victim blame, which is insane,” she added. “I mean, looking back on it, I was a child who was making money for a man older than my dad. And a lot of stuff I couldn’t talk about. So when I would realize it then, I couldn’t talk about it and I stuffed it down. And that just led to a lot of self-destructive habits that I kept to myself. Now in current day, present day, I’m 31. My brain is developed. And I’m starting to realize what really did happen to me. And it’s been a pretty hard pill to swallow.”
Stodden famously married Hutchison at the age of 16.
