Former teenage bride Courtney Stodden needed to learn how to date after her recent split from much-older husband Doug Hutchison.
Stodden — who at just 16 years old infamously tied the knot with Hutchison, an actor more than three decades her senior — appears on Friday’s episode of Patti Stanger‘s “Million Dollar Matchmaker,” but the outspoken host initially tried to keep her off her show.
“I wasn’t happy about bringing her on. I had a fight with the network about it because I didn’t think she was serious about doing the work,” Stanger told Page Six this week. “I knew [Stodden’s] fame game, and I wasn’t about to play with a fame w—e. You either get real with me or get out, which changed after she left.”
Since taping the episode, Stanger says Stodden, now 22, has undergone a “radical” transformation, both mentally and physically. Coming into the show, the model was emotionally “stunted,” because she married so young and never learned to “spot the loser from the winner.”
“Most of what we preconceive, what we want, is something that happens in high school,” Stanger said. “She’s got time but her attractor is off. … She has to fix what’s broken in her teen years.”
Speaking to Page Six on Thursday, Stodden said her experience on the show “definitely helped” push away from the blond bombshell facade she’s put on for the public for years.
“She gave me a confidence in being myself. … I pretended to be something I’m not: the blond, ditzy, sexy … underneath it, if you strip all that back, that’s not who I am,” she said.
The “real” Stodden, she told us, is “completely vulnerable. I’m really sensitive. I’m actually a huge dork and a geek. I love to read, and it’s completely opposite of the persona I’ve created. I’m not that blond image at all.”
She added, “I’m rediscovering who I am because I lost myself in that whole image for a while.”
Stodden, who is currently dating, recently moved into her first apartment alone. While she’s nervous about being on her own, the independence has also given her confidence. “I’m definitely rebranding, and I think it starts with my personal growth,” Stodden told us.
Her need to mature was part of the reason she and Hutchison divorced, a split that still weighs on her in some ways despite having reached an amicable place with her ex.
“He came to accept the fact that I needed to grow, and I appreciate that he had the knowledge and respect and love just to let me go,” Stodden shared. “It’s very sensitive, but it got volatile there for a little bit but we’re at a point now where we talk and he’s still there for me and I’m there for him.”
Looking back, Stodden says she has “no regrets” about her marriage. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without that support [now] because he’s been there for me ever since I was a teenager, basically,” she said.
“Million Dollar Matchmaker” airs Friday at 9 p.m. ET on WE tv.