Courtney Stodden is accusing television personality Dr. Drew Pinsky of exploitation when she says he forced her to undergo an exam of her breasts on live television when she was a minor.
“Dr. Drew had me on his show when I was 16 and had me undergo an ultrasound to see if my breasts were real or if I was lying about my breasts,” Stodden, now 31, alleged in a post shared via Instagram on Saturday, June 27. “I wasn’t an underage girl. I was a minor trapped in a situation that I wasn’t able to get out of legally. I had no rights at the time. The money he paid me to be on the show went straight to my abuser.”
At the time, a then-16-year-old Stodden was married to then-51-year-old actor Doug Hutchison. Stodden eventually filed for divorce from the actor in 2018 and the former couple finalized the split in 2020.
“Obviously there is a problem in America,” Stodden told Fox News Digital in an October 2025 interview of her experience as a teen bride. “We think of child marriage as something that’s, like, overseas or foreign, but really America’s dirty little secret is the loophole in the judicial system for, in my opinion, pedophiles to marry children.”
She added at the time, “And the scariest part of this whole thing is that I’m not alone. There are so many people that reach out to me to tell me their horror stories of being a child bride.”
In her Saturday upload, Stodden shared screenshots of her 2011 interview on Dr. Drew’s daytime show Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers. During the episode, the then-minor was instructed to lie on stage in front of a studio audience while Dr. Drew performed a breast ultrasound to check for breast implants.
“These photos bring up a lot of sadness for me because I see a little girl being exploited by grown men and used for views and mockery,” she continued in the poignant caption. “Dr. Drew, what made you think this was a good idea? As a doctor, did you think this was actually healthy for a little girl to experience? Did you even care?”
Stodden also tagged Dr. Drew in the post, who has not publicly addressed Stodden’s claims at the time of publication. Us Weekly has reached out to representatives for the TV personality for comment but did not hear back.
Stodden — who has often detailed her on-again, off-again 35-year age-gap marriage to Hutchison and has since claimed she was groomed by the actor — has become an advocate against child marriage — a practice that continues in the United States. Currently, 33 states allow a child under the age of 18 to get married, while 17 states have banned the practice.
“Realizing everything that has happened to me in present time has been a lot to process,” she told Fox News Digital during the same 2025 interview. “When I first hit the spotlight as a young girl, my brain wasn’t developed yet. And I had a certain image of what my life was. I thought I knew everything. I mean, what kid doesn’t at 16. Then as things started to escalate quite quickly — and my role seemed to shift in the marriage quite quickly — I became the breadwinner.”
Stodden famously revealed that she received negative comments and attacks for her age-gap marriage, including leaked DMs from Chrissy Teigen in which the model encouraged the then-16-year-old Stodden to die by suicide.
“Not a lot of people are lucky enough to be held accountable for all their past bulls*** in front of the entire world,” Teigen, 40, wrote in a since-deleted post shared via X, apologizing for her previous comments. “I’m mortified and sad at who I used to be. I was an insecure, attention seeking troll. I am ashamed and completely embarrassed at my behavior but that is nothing compared to how I made Courtney feel.”
In 2025, Stodden revealed she had contemplated suicide as a result of the online hate she received.
“I had a suicide letter written,” she said in the ABC News documentary IMPACT x Nightline: Confessions of a Child Bride. “I remember my last thought was, ‘You know, maybe I don’t deserve to be here when people that high up are telling me I don’t deserve to be.’”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
If you know of a young person who is being exploited or is the victim of a crime, you are urged to report it to your local FBI field office by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI. Tips can also be left at http://tips.fbi.gov/
