Courtney Stodden is setting the record straight.
Courtney first became infamous as the 16-year-old wife of the much-older character actor Doug Hutchison. They finally divorced in 2020 after almost ten years together, and in the time since, Courtney (who identifies as nonbinary) has been reclaiming their narrative.
After years of defending the unusual (and uncomfortable) arrangement, they finally admitted that their relationship with Doug was an abusive one. They also spoke out about the intense bullying at the hands of the media and the public that occurred when they were just a teenager trapped in an untenable situation.
Related: Courtney Shows Face Full Of ‘Hormonal Acne’ In Raw Post About Realities Of Anxiety
In a revealing new interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast, the now 27-year-old shared their entire perspective on the traumatic marriage and the events that happened during and after. They admitted it was still “very, very fresh for me” and said they were “working through all of this” in therapy, and had begun to see things “so much more clearly.”
Calling their ex in no uncertain terms a “pedophile,” they reflected:
“I think that’s the ultimate power a groomer has over a child.That emotional abuse and control. … I feel like I didn’t even have control over my own body, my own finances. … I was just so controlled.”
Elsewhere, they stated:
“I think it’s pretty obvious that [Hutchison] looked at me like a child but wanted to treat me like some kind of object.”
Wow.
The reality star admitted to being “haunted by a lot of s**t,” adding:
“When I go to sleep my dreams are so normal and then I wake up my life is so freaking insane. I just like to sleep most of the day.”
Although the trauma clearly still weighs heavily on Courtney, they’ve come a long way and have even begun to advocate for others. They shared:
“[It] just makes sense why this happened, and it happens to so many other children in the USA. About 300,000 children, underage children, were married to adults between the years of 2000 and 2018, and 86 per cent of those children are girls. And it’s in this country. We think of child brides as some foreign situation, but it is so prevalent in the USA right now, and it’s terrifying. And some are as young as 10 years old.”
Courtney stated plainly:
“I was not a child bride. I was a child who was exploited. I think that is something that people should think about.”
Read on for more of the revelations from Courtney’s Call Her Daddy interview:
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How the “romance” began
As Courtney has explained before, the relationship with Doug began through email exchanges. The Lost alum had agreed (clearly under false pretenses) to “coach” Courtney on acting. He previously claimed not to know how old they were when the correspondence began, but Courtney denied that on Call Her Daddy:
“My manager at the time sent him pictures, and he was very much aware of what I looked like. But he claims… he never knew my age. That’s not true. He did. My mom received a call from him, and he said, ‘I really want to start teaching your daughter acting,’ and she goes, ‘OK, well, you know she’s only…she just turned 16.’”
The emails weren’t sexual in nature, but they were inappropriate, although they recalled that “as a child, I didn’t really see it as anything predatory.” They said:
“Now I know in retrospect it’s just a way to start figuring out the child and to get your claws in them and control them.”
The shocking wedding
They exchanged emails for six months before Doug came to their hometown in Washington to meet Courtney for the first time:
“I believe [that trip] was obviously to see his child in person, verify the parents are on-board. ‘I’m not going to go to jail, and I can get that free pass to molest a child. I just need that paperwork signed for me to get married because it’s a loophole.’ Then a week later we got married. So I basically just met him in person one week, and then a week later I’m married.”
While the teenager was all in on the romance at the time, their parents’ reaction still felt off. They recalled:
“My dad just said he needed to meet him in person and then he could just sign off on it, which in retrospect makes me extremely angry. He was in his very own fragile state of mind at that point in the marriage with my mother. My mother was in a very bad place with my father, so this was a perfect grooming situation for someone like Doug.”
They added:
“Like I really did want to marry Doug because I thought I was in love with him, but there was also something in me as a child that made me question if my father really loved me. So it was like this dichotomy.”
Though their father did pull them aside before Doug arrived to confirm the relationship was what they wanted, Courtney was still shocked by how quickly everything escalated:
“When we got to that diner, we had a little lunch. My dad immediately — before they ate their lunch — took Doug outside and said, ‘You know what, you have my blessing.’ He didn’t even see him for maybe an hour? They didn’t talk. My dad was driving, Doug was in the backseat, and he gave Doug the blessing to take his child away from him. Even if he did feel like his family was falling apart and all these things, I feel like he did choose himself.”
Within a week, they were exchanging vows in Vegas with their parents’ blessing. And yet the event fractured their relationship with their father forever:
“The photo of my father walking me down the aisle is really interesting to me because he has this look on his face…where he’s just so angry? But he’s still doing it? Which was really…I don’t know.”
They revealed:
“My father has completely disowned me. He texted me and said: ‘You are not my daughter.’ This was about three years ago. So I don’t have a relationship with that man.”
A traumatic honeymoon
Courtney admitted to being completely naive about sex and relationships going into the marriage — not only because they were 16 years old, but also because of growing up “in a really Christian family.” No one told them what to expect, and as a virgin, they ‘really didn’t even know what was going to happen on the honeymoon.’
Heartbreakingly, Courtney mused:
“I was beyond nervous because I just wanted to play the part for him. I wanted him to be impressed with me, like I was a woman. I mean, I was a kid. So I feel like I was playing dress-up in a sense, but I was so madly in love with him that I just, like, I don’t know, it was just this really strange feeling that I always carried with me.”
When it came time to be physically intimate with their husband, the underage teen turned to wine. They said:
“I just shut down. I disassociated myself. I tried the best I could to put on that role because that’s what grooming is, really.”
Courtney added:
“I remember running into the bathroom, shutting the door, and just looking in the mirror and crying for I don’t know how long. I was just crying. And I know I was feeling stuff that I wasn’t necessarily letting myself process, or I wasn’t old enough to process, or something, I don’t know.”
In a moment of raw vulnerability, they shared:
“I take my bra off. I was wearing [one of] those Bombshell Victoria’s Secret bras. Do you remember that? It’s like two big cup sizes. And then inside of that, I had a cutlet. So they were like [big]. And I was so freaked out to undress because I’m like, he’s just not going to love me like this. Like I look like a kid. I looked like a 12-year-old with my clothes off. Little did I know it was a fantastic night for him. But I was a complete nervous wreck.”
Not knowing anything scientific about female anatomy or the hymen, Courtney revealed:
“I’d grown up in such a religious household, and I remember looking down at the sheets, the white sheets, and I was just, I was praying to God. For some reason, I kind of felt like I was the one who wasn’t good enough all of the time. I was like, please. I pray to God that there was some cherry on there because if there’s no freaking cherry, like I’m not going to be good enough for this man. Literally how sick is that? I mean, I’m not putting down anybody’s beliefs, but like for me I just look back at it and I think it’s so sick. And I saw [blood], and I felt like, OK, so this is ordained by God. This is an ordained situation.”
So upsetting. Even worse, they described Hutchison as being “on top of the moon” the next day:
“I mean, he just got to molest a child, legally.”
“Like a conservatorship”
The television personality compared the marriage to a conservatorship like Britney Spears’s, as Courtney had no control over the finances — but was made to star on several reality shows in order to make the couple money. Hutchison apparently called these reality programs their “golden goose.”
Courtney claimed:
“My pedophile husband is the one who decided to sign me up for things because he needed the money. Another misconception is people thought I was a gold digger, [that] I married him for money. I’m the one who was taking care of him. That’s why I entered reality TV because I felt like I had to. He controlled the bank accounts. I didn’t even know how to write a check.”
Not only did the marriage take its toll, but the constant pressure of being on television did as well:
“I know on [The Mother/Daughter Experiment: Celebrity Edition] I was so underweight. I felt so anorexic before that. I went on the show, [and] I was throwing up right when I got there. I was throwing up nothing. I hadn’t had anything to eat in a few days. I wasn’t eating on set. I got to a point where I was so freaking sick and I was sent to the hospital on the show because of it — because I was going to faint. Like I was just so sick. But really, Doug cared about me finishing it out and getting the money and then returning it to him.”
Recalling their appearance on the 12th season of Celebrity Big Brother in 2013, they said:
“This was the first time that I was ever truly away from him. I couldn’t breathe being away from this man. That’s how groomed I was. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to be away from him for a few weeks or a month or whatever. I was so distraught and I was so depressed.”
Striking up an unlikely friendship with the late Dustin Diamond on that show was the first time anyone had pointed out the red flags in their relationship with Doug. They reflected:
“By the time I ended the show, I knew I didn’t want to be with him anymore, that there was something that wasn’t right. By the time we got back to the US, I told him I wanted a separation, and that’s when I finally felt free enough to get away from him, strong enough to get away from him. … I was assaulted [during our separation], and then I went back.”
Related: Courtney Is Engaged To BF Chris Sheng! See The Ring That Made Them ‘Gag’!
Abuse during the marriage
Post-Big Brother wasn’t the only time Courtney left Doug, but sadly they experienced a lot of difficulty doing so. Having been together from such a formative age, Courtney felt they “couldn’t live without him.” Whey they did leave:
“I was raped a few times when I left him, and I’d go back to him and he’s just kind of like, ‘Well, what do you expect? You left me. I’m the one who loves you. I’m the one who takes care of you.’ And so that’s why it took so long. The media’s always wondering why did it take so long. That’s what was happening, this abuse, this emotional abuse.”
They continued:
“I think, too, like so many victims and survivors blame ourselves. We blame ourselves because we think it’s our fault, but the full picture is the abuser is the one who is controlling that. It’s not your fault at all — and I wish I could have told myself these things in those moments.”
Elaborating on the abuse, they said:
“He was extremely emotionally abusive to me. At times physical, but mostly emotionally abusive. Because I think that’s the ultimate power a groomer has over a child, is that emotional abuse and control.”
Courtney revealed that Doug did keep a gun in their house, but declined to speak much about it for legal reasons. They did share:
“I still have scars on me — physical scarring.”
Relationship with their mother
Courtney’s relationship with their mom Krista Keller has been understandably fraught over the years. On Call Her Daddy, they said:
“My mom has gotten a lot of hate, and I understand why. If I ever have a baby and I’m raising that baby, from my own experiences, I would never sign my kid off, ever, to an adult man, who is 34 years older. There is just no way that would happen. But I think she thought she was doing something that was going to make me happy, truly, I really do believe that. In retrospect, she knows it was the wrong decision. She’s apologized to me so many times and has said, you know, ‘If I could just do anything to do over, I’m just so sorry, I wouldn’t sign off on this.’”
To make things all the more complicated, Krista revealed during the Mother/Daughter reality show that she was having an emotional affair with Doug and claimed he had sexual fantasies that involved the three of them together. On Call Her Daddy, Courtney said they are “still working on that in therapy,” although they “never personally heard” Hutchison talking about Krista in a sexual way.
They mused:
“My mom has had her own experiences in life. I really [saw] her fall in love with my husband through me. So it was like this, I don’t know. She even told me, ‘You and I are like Siamese twins. Whatever you feel, I feel.’ I was a kid and she was going along with her kid with this situation. I’m still healing from this.”
Chrissy Teigen & media bullying
Courtney’s trauma was compounded by all the bullying they suffered at the hands of the media. They recalled:
“I was way too young to be crying on the kitchen floor every freaking night with a bottle of wine and opening another one,’ they said. ‘I felt like I didn’t have at that point in time, 17 years old, like I had anybody in my corner because I was being told to commit suicide at 16 [by online trolls]. Every minute, I would turn around, there’d be another hit piece, you know, in the grocery store or somewhere else. People were talking about how I was dressing or behaving. Little did they know then that is a part of grooming. I was trying to be that part, right? That part really did a doozy on my self-worth, really.”
The constant negative attention deeply affected the teen’s body image:
“You see yourself from every angle in the media and it completely shattered me. So I had my breasts done right when I turned 18. … I wanted to be the woman everyone expected me to be.”
One of the worst offenders was Chrissy Teigen, whose extremely nasty, bullying tweets towards the teenager resurfaced after Courtney began telling their side of the story. Claiming they had been a fan of Chrissy and John Legend when the harassment began, they remembered:
“I was following them and then I started seeing this on my timeline and I was like, ‘But I love you!’ I just had this feeling, ‘But I really like you!’ But other than that, at that point in time, I was so young, I don’t think I processed how deeply that led to my future depression.”
While the public tweets were bad enough, Chrissy was privately messaging Courtney with harassment for “a really long time,” sometimes even as late as 2 AM:
“She messaged me, ‘I cannot wait for you to die.’ And that was just one of them that I remember. And then publicly she was saying, you know, ‘I can’t wait for you to take a dirt nap.’ She was just obsessed with seeing me die. … She had to have been in a really dark a** place to tell these children and women these things, to, I don’t know, make herself feel better about herself?”
They added:
“I specifically remember this one because I was just like so shocked. It was really early in the morning at some point. I mean, this was a freaking decade ago. I know people can change a lot in that time frame, but I didn’t hear from her when she apologized. I was blocked from everything!”
Courtney stated:
“I know now she says she’s doing the best she can, and I really hope that she means it. If that stuff continues, we’re just going to see more suicides, unfortunately, it’s not going to help.”
Doug’s continued predator ways
While Courtney is thankfully out of the abusive, predatory situation, they were devastated to learn that Doug was “pursuing a 15-year-old girl in the UK” amidst their divorce. Emotionally, they claimed:
“I have all of the proof. I have all of the emails. I got connected with an ex-assault victim and he was doing the same thing to another 15-year-old girl while I was going through this process.”
They continued:
“I found out through a stepmother who reached out to me on Instagram, and I just can’t tell you how much that broke me, even after all of the control. I felt like I didn’t have any control over my own body, my own finances. I couldn’t sign any legal documents in that marriage. I couldn’t sign off on my own marriage, I was just so controlled.”
Courtney reflected:
“But then I think that there’s this trauma bond that happens when you’re that age, right? I don’t want to say I had Stockholm Syndrome, but there’s this grooming. It’s the mental effects of grooming, where I didn’t want to believe. A few people would reach out [to warn me], and I just didn’t want to believe it. It’s not how he made me feel. He made me feel really, really special, and unique. I just really believed him, and then just finding out everything it’s just…horrible.”
They went on:
“And then reading that he’s ready to marry another minor. I just helped with the attorneys there [so they could] get this little girl away from him. It just became my mission because I know exactly what he was doing.”
For Courtney, seeing his predation on another young girl finally “clicked that I was with a predator.” They had to block Doug and cut off all contact after he tried getting back in touch:
“It’s just so obvious that he’s still trying to victim claim [and] control, even after knowing that he was just doing this to a 15-year-old girl less than a month and a half ago.”
We can’t believe all the trauma that Courtney has suffered. We hope they are prioritizing themself and continuing to heal and find peace.
[Image via Dr. Drew/YouTube & Call Her Daddy/Instagram]
The post Courtney Stodden Talks Chrissy Teigen's Bullying, Being 'Exploited' By 'Pedophile' Ex Doug Hutchison, & The Disgusting Ways He Groomed Them appeared first on Perez Hilton.