Courtney Stodden shares heartbreaking update on child marriage in the US: ‘The scariest part is…’

Courtney Stodden has spoken out about her traumatic experience as a child bride, calling child marriage "America’s dirty little secret."

Model and singer Courtney Stodden has condemned child marriage in the United States, describing it as ‘America’s dirty little secret’. Reflecting on her marriage at age 16 to actor Doug Hutchison, who was 35 years her senior, Stodden revealed she became the ‘breadwinner’ in a relationship which left her emotionally scarred and silenced, Fox News reported.

Courtney Stodden opens up on trauma of being child bride, calls child marriage ‘America’s little secret’(Instagram/courtneyastodden)

Stodden revisited her story in the Lifetime film I Was a Child Bride: The Courtney Stodden Story, part of the network’s Ripped from the Headlines series. In interviews promoting the film, she shared that realizing the depth of her trauma in adulthood has been painful but necessary.

“When I first hit the spotlight as a young girl, my brain was not developed yet,” Stodden told Fox News Digital. She added that she became the breadwinner at 16 and making money for a man older than her father.

‘America’s dirty little secret’

Stodden emphasized that child marriage is not a distant issue confined to other nations. “We think of child marriage as something foreign, but really, America’s dirty little secret is the loophole in the judicial system that allows, in my opinion, pedophiles to marry children,” Stodden said in her conversation with Fox News.

She added that she regularly received messages from other survivors of child marriage in the United States. “The scariest part of it is that I am not alone,” Stodden said and noted, “There are so many people who reach out to me with their horror stories.”

Stodden and Hutchison, who were married in 2011, separated and reconciled several times before finalizing their divorce in 2020. During their marriage, Stodden was subjected to public ridicule, victim-blaming instead of empathy.

Surviving public scrutiny and personal loss

In an interview with Too Fab, Stodden revealed that she coped with public scrutiny by creating a ‘caricature’ of herself. “I used my fashion as rebellion,” the model said and elaborated that the public criticized her. “I hid behind that character to survive,” she revealed.

Over time, she admitted, she lost herself in that persona. She said her participation in the project brought buried emotions to the surface, particularly around her relationship with her father. “Both of my parents believed he was a good guy,” she reflected. Stodden said her father’s emotional absence catapulted into the experience she had. “Reopening that wound has been the hardest part,” she said.

Healing and finding hope

In the same interview, Stodden said she has found renewed hope in her personal life. In December 2024, she married television producer Jared Safier in a small, intimate ceremony.

"He has demonstrated a completely different way to love," she said, "He has shown me what healthy love looks like. I will never completely trust again; however, I feel safe with him."

At thirty-one years old, Stodden still fights for change by raising awareness about child marriage laws in the United States and encourages lawmakers to close legal loopholes that allow abusers to get away with it under the name of marriage.

FAQs

How old was Courtney Stodden when she got married?

She was 16 years old when she married actor Doug Hutchison, who was 51 at the time.

What did Courtney Stodden call child marriage in the U.S.?

She referred to it as “America’s dirty little secret,” criticizing legal loopholes that allow adults to marry minors.

When did Courtney Stodden and Doug Hutchison divorce?

Stodden filed for divorce in 2018, and the divorce was finalized in 2020.