Gwendlyn Brown is opening up about what growing up on reality TV is really like. After filming so much of her life for Sister Wives on TLC since the show began nearly 15 years ago, Gwendlyn is looking back at the ups and downs in a new interview with Teen Vogue that was published this week. And now that she’s telling her story, it seems like filming the show came with a pretty big drawback when it came to keeping her private life private.
In recent years, Gwendlyn has been open about her sexuality on social media, and has shared photos from her wedding to Beatriz Queiroz on Instagram. But as she told Teen Vogue, she hadn’t mentioned anything about her love life or who she was attracted to on the show until one of the producers caught her off guard.
“We were interviewing, I think about the divorce or about my sister Ysabel moving to North Carolina,” she said. “Then all of a sudden, the producer was like, ‘Hey, your mom mentioned that you’re bi. Do you want to talk about that?’ And I was like, ‘Well, it’s true.’”
Gwendlyn told the outlet that she doesn’t believe that queer people should have to come out — after all, straight people never have to come out as straight. But in this instance, she felt like the producer “jumped” her and she wasn’t prepared.
Filming the show wasn’t always easy for Gwendlyn. She told Teen Vogue that at first, when the show began filming when she was very young, she was “super into it,” but that changed as she got older and realized how much of her privacy she was sacrificing.
“I couldn’t have a hard day. There wasn’t a lot of privacy,” she said.
She felt like she had to be on her best behavior while the show was filming, which could certainly take a lot out of a kid.
“All that anger and all that publicity,” she said. “And oftentimes, I even wanted to be angry on camera. I think there were a few times that I probably [was]. Even if as a kid, you want attention, you can look back at it as an adult and be like, ‘that poor kid.’ Also, poor me now.”
Today, she said that she’s “growing a bigger dislike” for being on reality TV.
“It was like, ‘this is my normal.’ But now it’s like, ‘this does not have to be my normal,’ and it’s weird,” she said.
