Who Is Paige McGee? Seeking Sister Wife Star Arrested
Seeking Sister Wife star Paige McGee has been arrested. What happened?
Instagram Fans of "Seeking Sister Wife" on TLC were shocked this weekend when news broke that Bernie and Paige McGee had been arrested for felony stalking in Mississippi.
The would-be polygamist couple’s journey to find a sister wife to add to their family has been an emotional one but nothing audiences have seen on TV would indicate that there’s anything dangerous or criminal about this pair. However, off camera and on social media, it turns out that these two have a different history than what they portray on the show. Their relationship with their extended family is fraught with conflict and an on-going feud with Paige’s family may be the reason for their arrest.
Who is Paige McGee and why is she under indictment? Read on to learn more.
1. Mom
In their introduction on the show, Paige and Bernie tell audiences that they have been married for 17 years and have four kids. Two are Paige’s sons from a prior marriage, whom Bernie legally adopted when they got married. Those two boys are out on their own. They have two other sons who are living with them now.
They go on to explain that they always wanted more children but, after complications in her final pregnancy, Paige was told it would be too dangerous to have more babies.
2. Growing the family
The desire for more children is what really inspired Paige and Bernie to see out the polygamous lifestyle. They say they want a sister wife to grow their family and bring more children into the mix. Paige tells the audience that she was reading the Bible and found sections where men had multiple wives and came to the idea that she felt Bernie should take another wife.
Bernie agreed that this was their “calling” as a family and they should pursue the idea.
3. Religious conflict
Paige and Bernie are not from a religion that typically embraces polygamy. They describe their faith as "Messianic" and being based on the entire Bible. They also say that their pursuit of polygamy led to their church rejecting them.
Evidently, the congregation was uncomfortable with a family attempting to live outside of the traditional monogamist paradigm and requested that they stop attending services. This disappointed the couple but didn’t dissuade them from pursuing additional wives.
4. Second try
Paige confides to the camera that they had been considering a sister wife a few years previously and had selected a woman who was friends with both of them. However, Paige felt such significant jealousy over the situation that they pulled the plug on the whole relationship. Since then, they’ve had a few hardships to overcome before trying again. They lost everything in a house fire and have been living in an RV. They decided that this was a good moment to try once more to find a sister wife so they could make decisions about where to settle down based on that new relationship.
This season, they’re exploring the possibility of a sister wife relationship with a woman named Brandy, who is divorced with teenage kids of her own. Brandy tells them she doesn’t want to have more kids, which was allegedly the main point of the this process for the McGee’s but Brandy won them over, with Bernie saying they could just find other wives in the future to have more babies. But despite the family all liking Brandy, by episode seven, it was clear that Paige’s jealousy was going to pose an obstacle to continuing the relationship.
5. Arrest
In a shocking turn of events, fans found out that Paige and Bernie had both been arrested for felony stalking on March 15, 2019. They were arrested in Rankin County, MS before being transferred to a jail in Jasper County, MS. They have since been release, presumably on bail. In order for stalking to rise to the level of a felony offense in Mississippi, the offender must be in violation of prior protective order or have engaged in cyberstalking, which can include emails or text messages.
6. Bad blood
It turns out that as much as Paige and Bernie want to expand their family in the future, they have not been exactly close to their extended family in the past. Paige’s brother Patrick Marble told blogger John Yates that “Paige has a very long history of making false accusations against numerous family members, friends, neighbors, employers, etc. I was horrified by some of her accusations against me. Since she was a teen, Paige has had an insatiable desire to be seen as the victim. She has a violent temper and she’s repeatedly physically attacked my mother. Paige has even threatened to kill Mom when Mom refused to decide between me and Paige. She needs help. Paige has always been jealous and insecure. It’s been a lifelong nightmare.”
7. Harsh words
Patrick has also revealed the Paige has a mean streak and isn’t afraid to lash out. In screenshots Patrick has, Paige goes off on a fan telling her that her child with Downs Syndrome is a “r----d” and “your child has Down syndrome because of what a horrible person you and and god is pushing you.”
8. Stalking
The relationship between Marble and the McGees, and Marble’s long experience with Paige’s nasty streak, is the root of this latest arrest. Marble and Nicki Smith claim, via an affidavit, that Bernie and Paige had repeatedly made “calls to both Patrick and Nicki’s home, work, and cell.” Between that the the past threats Paige and Bernie have made, “both Patrick and Nicki fear for their life.”
It’s not clear what with happen to the McGee’s contract with TLC as this stalking case moves forward. So far, the network has not made any statements about the situation.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.