Courtney Stodden calls child marriage ‘America’s dirty little secret,’ opens up about trauma and survival

Model and singer Courtney Stodden is shedding light on what she calls “America’s dirty little secret”- child marriage, while reflecting on her own disturbing experience of marrying actor Doug Hutchison at just 16 years old.

In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Stodden recounted how her teenage marriage quickly turned exploitative, revealing that she became the breadwinner in a relationship with a man 35 years older than her. “People have a misconception that I married for money,” Stodden said. “I was a child making money for a man older than my dad. And I couldn’t talk about it then, I just kept it all inside.”

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“America’s dirty little secret”

Stodden, now 31, condemned the legal loopholes in U.S. marriage laws that still allow minors to wed with parental or judicial consent. “We think of child marriage as something that happens overseas,” she said. “But really, America’s dirty little secret is the loophole in the judicial system that allows, in my opinion, pedophiles to marry children.”

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Her comments have reignited public discussion around child marriage in the United States, where advocacy groups estimate that thousands of minors, mostly girls, have been legally married in recent decades.

Revisiting her story in Lifetime’s I Was a Child Bride

Stodden revisited her traumatic past in the Lifetime biopic I Was a Child Bride: The Courtney Stodden Story, which premiered on September 27. The film, part of the network’s Ripped from the Headlines series, explores the emotional and psychological impact of her marriage and the media frenzy that followed. Stodden both produced and narrated the project, describing it as a painful but healing process.

“Revisiting those moments opened old wounds, especially when it came to my father,” she shared. “Both of my parents believed Doug was a good guy. Not having my dad emotionally was a big catapult to everything that happened.”

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The toll of fame and victim-blaming

During her teenage years, Stodden became the target of public ridicule and victim-blaming, with critics focusing more on her appearance than on the power imbalance in her marriage. To cope, she said she “created a caricature” of herself, a hyper-glamorous persona that allowed her to survive under scrutiny. “People weren’t talking about me,” she said. “They were talking about the character I created. In a way, that saved me.”

But over time, she admitted that she began to lose her real identity in that act. “I became that caricature,” she reflected. “I was pushed to embrace it, and I lost myself in the process.”

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Moving forward and finding hope

Stodden divorced Hutchison in 2020 after several separations during their nine-year relationship. In December 2024, she married television producer Jared Safier in a small, intimate ceremony, describing the union as a fresh start.

“He’s shown me what a healthy love looks like,” Stodden said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever fully trust again, but I feel safe with him, and that’s something I never thought I’d feel.”

A call for change

Stodden continues to use her platform to advocate for stronger protections against child marriage and raise awareness of the issue that she says is too often ignored. “The scariest part is that I’m not alone,” she said. “So many people reach out to me with their own horror stories. This isn’t just my trauma, it’s a national problem hiding in plain sight.”