Exclusive Video: How ‘Alaskan Bush’ Dad Snatched Child Bride — Her Mom Tells All!
Jan. 4 2017, Updated 3:58 p.m. ET
Alaskan Bush People star Billy Brown claims he fell for longtime wife Ami at first sight. But according to the mother of seven’s family, the reality couple’s love story is much more sinister!
For the first time, 53-year-old Ami’s older brother Les Branson and her elderly mother Earlene are sharing the truth behind the mysterious pair in an exclusive video interview with RadarOnline.com.
From their Fort Worth, Texas area home, Les, 57, claims Billy’s seduction of Ami at just 15 — when he was 26 — began with lies and deception.
“Ami first met Billy when he came to do some plumbing work on my mother’s house…We didn’t know that he was seeing her behind the scenes for quite some time,” Les tells RadarOnline.com in the exclusive clip. “By the time my mother did know that, it too late. She was already madly in love with him. And he evidently was very much taken by her.”
Despite the shocking age difference, the couple decided to get married after a whirlwind romance. Earlene, 84, says she felt there was nothing she could do to stop her headstrong daughter, who allegedly claimed, “If you don’t let me get married, I’m going to run off with him anyway!”
Still, Earlene and big brother Les were hopeful for the young teen’s future with her new husband.
“I wasn’t really that concerned about it, because I assumed Billy was an honest, reputable person. And that he wouldn’t keep Ami from us,” he recalls.
Sadly, within months of the wedding, the “charismatic” Billy, 64, whisked the young Ami off to Alaska — and despite Earlene and Les’ many attempts at a reconciliation, they never saw her again.
It’s now been 37 years since they last saw the Discovery Channel star in person.
Earlene and Les say they later learned Billy fed them lies to snatch Ami away from her home, including that he was much younger than his 26 years.
“He lied about his age!” Earlene huffs.
Billy also said, they claim, that he was rich and would ensure Ami finished high school and moved on to college.
Instead, the clan infamously traveled all over the country as nomads, eventually settling in rural Alaska. Ami never finished her schooling.
“He gave the impression that he was very wealthy and came from a wealthy family.
He seduced us with the trappings of wealth,” Les explains. “We thought that he would provide for Ami, that he would keep her in school, and never keep her from seeing us. And we never saw her again!”
He also failed to inform the family that he had been previously married with two secret children. (RadarOnline.com was first to expose Billy’s secret first family, and one daughter, Twila, eventually appeared on the reality show.)
Of course, Billy has been caught in scams before.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, he and second oldest son “Bam Bam” were convicted of falsification and theft after swindling the Alaskan government of $27,000 in a get-rich-quick scheme. (They served 30 days of electronic monitoring, and eventually paid a hefty fine just before the deadline.)
He has also been caught staging scenes on the family’s wildly popular reality show.
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Keep reading RadarOnline.com for more from the Branson clan’s exclusive video interview.
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