Overview

• Stodden calls child marriage “America’s dirty little secret” and criticizes judicial or parental exceptions that allow adults to marry minors.
• She says she became the breadwinner at 16, earning money for a man older than her father.
• She reports hearing from numerous U.S. survivors with “horror stories,” stressing that her experience is not isolated.
• The Lifetime episode I Was a Child Bride: The Courtney Stodden Story premiered on September 27, with Stodden credited as producer and narrator.
• She describes enduring public victim-blaming and adopting a protective “caricature,” and notes a 2020 divorce followed by a December 2024 remarriage she says feels safe and hopeful.