The untold truth of Courtney Stodden
Courtney Stodden, surprisingly is only 25 years old. But she has been famous for almost a decade.
The model/singer/reality TV star/PETA spokesperson has lived in the spotlight since she was just 16 years old. Was she a child star? Or some kind of youth advocate who went viral for inspiring social or political change? No, it was nothing like that.
If you're familiar with the controversial star, then you already know. But for those of you who came here to find out more, after perhaps stumbling across one of her music videos on YouTube, or finding yourself blushing uncontrollably when one of her racy Instagram snaps hit your feed, we won't spoil the surprise.
This still-rising star is a remarkably open book, and since she's been swimming around the celebrity fishbowl for so long, you'd think there's not much more to reveal about her. But you would be wrong. This is the untold truth of Courtney Stodden.
Courtney Stodden burst onto the scene in 2011 when she married the character actor. Doug Hutchinson, who played a villain in the Tom Hanks-led The Green Mile, and had small roles in Lost and The X-Files. Why would anyone really care that an unknown star and a lesser-known character actor were getting married? Because Stodden was 16 and Hutchison was 51 at the time. Thus began the slow-motion train/media circus wreck of her marriage. People couldn't get away. Even Anderson Cooper commented on it at the time, adding them to his 'RidicuList'.
Incredibly, Stodden's parents signed off on the union, with her mother, Krista Stodden, telling Radar Online at the time, 'We fully support this marriage. Doug is a wonderful man and we love him.' The couple married in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Stodden's parents had to sign a permission form for the wedding to take place. Why did the 'good Christian girl', as her mother considered her, choose Sin City for her nuptials? Because in Stodden's home state of Washington, anyone under the age of 17, even with parental consent, can only marry after 'after petitioning the court under 'special circumstances', which are vague, but 'typically include pregnancy or childbirth,' according to FindLaw. If Stodden was 17, a simple parental consent would have been all they needed. Apparently, Hutchison and Stodden's love couldn't wait for that extra year.
One wonders how an aspiring teenage singer and a middle-aged actor found common ground, let alone fell in love enough to decide to bend the law to be together. How did Courtney Stodden and Doug Hutchinson meet? Online, of course. Speaking with ABC News in 2011, Hutchison said that she began communicating with Stodden about her interest in her acting workshop. He claimed that she did not initially realize that Stodden was just a teenager; perhaps it was his makeup, or her now-famous figure of hers, that Hutchison confirmed was real from head to toe. Stodden called Hutchison her 'soul mate' and told the outlet that her marriage was 'a beautiful gift' from God, also noting that she 'was a virgin when she [she married] [Hutchison ]'. To skeptics who said that Stodden only married Hutchinson to help her career, she replied 'If so, that's just another beautiful blessing that God gives me. But if I'm just with him for the rest of my life, supporting him, that would also make me happy."
The pair were instant paparazzi fodder, like the time just months after their scandalous marriage when they were kicked out of a pumpkin patch for Stodden's 'inappropriate behavior,' according to the Daily Mail. Dressed in barely there Daisy Dukes and stiletto boots, Stodden unabashedly made out with Hutchison as the tabloid press shut down. It's unclear if they got any pumpkins, but they definitely got the attention they were clearly buying for.
