Are Brian Austin Green And Courtney Stodden Dating?
The pair stepped out for lunch together.
Joe Seer / s_bukley / Shutterstock Courtney Stodden is dating a younger man.
Well, a man younger than her ex-husband. The 25-year-old Stodden announced that she finalized her divorce from her 60-year-old first husband Doug Hutchinson earlier this year. Now she has been spotted having lunch with Beverly Hills 90210 alum Brian Austin Green. At 46 years old, Green is more than 20 years older than Stodden but still more than 15 years younger than the man she was married to for over a decade.
The two were seen out together in California this week. Now folks are wondering:
Are Brian Austin Green and Courtney Stodden dating?
They were seen having lunch.
According to witnesses, two were spotted at Mejico Grill & Tequila Lounge in Agoura Hilla, California. The two weren't engaging in any public displays of affection — not even holding hands. In fact one person who saw them together said it looked pretty casual. "They picked up food together," their fellow diner recounted. "Brian had already paid for food. They were not acting at all like they are together.
Sources close to the two of them say they're friends.
Insiders say the lunch date was more lunch than date and the pair isn't romantically involved right now. "Brian and Courtney are just friends. They were out having a casual lunch, nothing more,” a source close to Stodden told reporters. “They both got out of long-term relationships around the same time, so they’re able to see eye to eye on a lot of the same things in terms of what they’re going through."
A friend of Green's had the same basic idea about their lunch; it was just two friends helping each other in a difficult time. "It’s not anything romantic,” the insider revealed. “Brian is not in that mode right now. He is looking to work and get over Megan[Fox] and working and being out is helping him. He knows people will assume things, but you know what they say about assuming!”
Green is on the rebound.
Even if the couple didn't look especially romantic, that doesn't change the fact that they are both single right now and available for dating. Green is separated from his wife Megan Fox. The one-time-teen-heartthrob admitted that he and Fox had split after she had been filming a movie out of the country.
"She said, 'I realized when I was out of the country working alone that I feel more like myself and I liked myself better during that experience and I think that might be something worth trying for me,' " Green explained on his podcast ...With Brian Austin Green. "I was shocked and I was upset about it, but I can’t be upset at her because she didn’t ask to feel that way. It wasn’t a choice she made, that’s the way she honestly felt. We talked about it a little more and said let’s separate for a bit … and so we did."
Green and Fox have been together off and on since 2004 when they met on the set of Hope and Faith. They have three kids together.
Green in 2020.
Stodden is also single.
Stodden's notoriety comes from the fact that she married actor Doug Hutchinson in 2011, when she was 16 and he was 51. Her parents were supportive of the match and gave them their blessing. The relationship was tumultuous and was marked by multiple separation and reconciliations. They went on the reality show Couples Therapy to work on their issues in 2012. However, they eventually announced they were splitting for good in 2018 and their divorce was finalized at the beginning of this year.
In an Instagram post, Stodden shared photo from early in their relationship. "It’s March 3rd, 2020 -—today I am officially divorced from actor Doug Hutchison. It’s an emotional day for me. God only knows how he’s feeling, but I can tell you that it’s for the better. I look back at this picture and feel absolutely taken advantage of. I’ve been scared to even speak up about feeling groomed or being verbally abused during the almost 10-year marriage because I was a child and he was 50 when we married," she wrote. "I’ve felt completely trapped, manipulated and at times abandoned by adults // growing up in such an environment — it became a lonely and dark place."
She then wrote, "Stay tuned for my book."
Stodden and her ex-husband.
Age issues plagued both of their marriages.
When Green first met Fox, he was reluctant to pursue a relationship because he was 30 years old and she was only 18. Fox was persistent and kept trying to convince him to date her, recalling “I had to convince him that I was slightly more responsible and well-spoken and had other things to bring to the table besides being 18."
Green remembered trying to stay away from her for a long time but eventually being glad she talked him into giving her a chance. "She was really young. And I was like, ‘This isn’t this. This can’t f–king happen. This isn’t going to happen, no way,’" he said in 2018. "And so I left and she was just really persistent — and thank God.”
Age was the whole reason Stodden went on TV with Hutchinson.
The age difference was the whole reason Stodden and Hutchinson sought reality TV therapy in their marriage. The basic difference in their ages and experiences was just one facet of what was wrong between them according to Jenn Bermann, the therapist who worked with them on the show.
"I believe it was the wrong decision to let a 16-year-old marry a man in his 50s. It's uncomfortable to see ... I don't condone it, but I do see that this is a married couple that is genuinely married and they have marital issues that needed to be worked on," she said. "What I found out was that she has a lot more power in this relationship and he is far more powerless than I expected. His family has completely disowned him. He, unfortunately, has nothing besides her."
Green is a lot older than Stodden.
Age issues would be alive and well if it does turn out that Stodden and Green are a couple. Green is 46 years old nd Stodden is only 25. Green also has four children, one of whom, at 17, is only a few years younger than Stodden is. The other three are 8, 6, and 4. Stodden and Hutchinson wanted to have children at one time but Stodden suffered a miscarriage in 2016.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.