In recent interviews, Courtney Stodden has opened up about how their story is much more serious than many people realized.
They described an abusive marriage that began with grooming, which is not a surprising claim for a former child bride.
Courtney has blocked Doug Hutchison but reveals that he continues to try to contact them.
They also accuse him of having tried to groom a new, even younger minor — who sent all of the videos to Courtney.
Courtney Stodden, who rose to fame at 16 for marrying then-51-year-old actor Doug Hutchison, spoke to In Touch Weekly.
They shared that Doug “still writes me” and even “tries to connect with me” even though they are divorced.
“I had to block him multiple times,” they shared, but it’s not always as simple as pressing the block button.
“There are times when I feel a struggle,” Courtney admitted. “I have this struggle where I want answers.”
It is extremely common for traumatized people to be tormented by a desire for answers from those who wronged them.
Even people who are fully no-contact with exes, family, and others sometimes feel the urge to understand why these things happened to them.
“And I think that I’ll always struggle with that,” Courtney acknowledged.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get [the answers], but sometimes, I then unblock him …” they confessed.
Courtney explained that this is “because I think there’s the psychological tug of war that I go through where if he says something to me that makes sense of why he did this.”
Sometimes giving in to their impulses to try to understand the man who married them when they were in high school doesn’t mean that they regret the divorce.
Courtney is “so grateful that I had the strength to move on.”
They shared that they are “trying not to beat myself up so, so much for allowing myself that grace to heal.”
Some things are more serious than unanswered questions and a toxic ex attempting to cross boundaries, however.
“When we were going through the divorce,” Courtney stated, “he was grooming a 15-year-old girl in the U.K.”
“And I saw all of the emails,” they continued. “She ended up sending me all of the emails. … She told me I’m her savior.”
The DM to Courtney identifying them as this young girl’s “savior” came in the wake of Courtney doing the Call Your Daddy podcast.
There, they spoke extensively about the months of “inappropriate” emails from Doug that came before they met.
Shortly after they met face-to-face, Doug received the “blessing” of Courtney’s parents to marry their 16-year-old, and Courtney’s fate was sealed.
Child marriage is not an accident — it is a deliberate and lingering loophole in many nations, including much of the United States.
Someone who is not old enough to consent to sex with an adult might be legally married to them, giving predators a green light to exploit and abuse minors without interference.
Seriously, Tennessee legislators just had to walk back a bill that would have removed all age restrictions on marriage — provided that it’s heterosexual. Truly despicable stuff.
We don’t know anything about this young girl who contacted Courtney, but it sounds like she’s safe.
Similarly, we do not know if any legal action will be taken — or if any crimes were actually committed. International law is complicated.
We remain grateful that Courtney is safe, but eternally heartbroken that Courtney has had to go through so much in their life.