Bullying, Booze & Suicidal Thoughts! 11 Shocking Secrets Of 'The Little Couple' Jen Arnold & Bill Klein Exposed In New Tell-All
May 18 2015, Updated 11:29 a.m. ET
On their TLC reality show, The Little Couple, Dr. Jen Arnold and her businessman husband, Bill Klein, seem like a squeaky-clean couple. But the parents to Will, 5, and Zoey, 3, traveled a very rocky road to get to their current marital bliss. Cancer survivor Arnold, 41, and her supportive hubby, 40, reveal shocking secrets about their formative years in their new memoir, Life Is Short (No Pun Intended).
Bill Klein and Dr. Jen Arnold of TLC’s The Little Couple
While Arnold says her Florida classmates were largely supportive, Klein says he was mercilessly bullied for his dwarfism as a college student in New York. "I was called "m*dget," I was teased, I was ignored, I was threatened, I was chased, I was beaten up," he writes in the new book, out May 26.
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One day, eight fellow New York University students threw objects at Klein from atop a building and called him derogatory names. He consulted police, who took the students into custody, but Klein never pressed charges.
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Feeling lonely and hopeless, Klein turned to booze. After nights out in New York's East Village downing pints of beer, "I would always arrive home alone and often fairly intoxicated," he says. "Even then, I might extend the party a little bit longer in the dorm and inevitably wake up feeling miserable."
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Klein slumped into a depression. "I was really feeling defined by my stature, and I felt interior," he recalls.
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One night at school, Klein says he was pushed to the brink— and very nearly attempted suicide. He stepped out the window of his sky rise dorm room and stood on the tiny ledge. "I stood up and leaned against the wall next to the window," he writes. "I looked down to the place where I might die."
‘Little Couple’ stars Dr. Jen Arnold and Bill Klein are seen at the ‘Good Morning America’ in New York City
After thinking of his family, Klein stepped back from the ledge. He was later comforted by a friend.
TLC’s The Little Couple walk the dog in New York City
Fortunately, Klein says "things got better after that night on the ledge." He met his first girlfriend and focused on things that made him "feel good."
Dr. Jen Arnold and Bill Klein of ‘The Little Couple’ leave NBC Studios in NYC
Klein's wife Arnold had her own fair share of tough times. As a child coping with skeletal dysplasia, she underwent countless painful surgeries at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. "I would be out of school for two to three weeks for the surgery, then up to three months to heal in the cast at home, and then six to eight more weeks for inpatient physical therapy at the hospital," she recalls. By the time she was 18, she had gone through 22 surgical procedures.
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Before each surgery, Arnold feared she would never wake up from the procedure. "I am going to die," she would think before going under anesthesia on the operating table.
Bill Klein and Dr. Jennifer Arnold enter the ‘Good Morning America’ studios, NYC
While interviewing at medical schools around the country, Arnold faced discrimination for her dwarfism. At the University of Miami, she was "grilled" about her stature. "The interview quickly became focused on my size, or lack thereof," she writes. She was eventually accepted in the Johns Hopkins Medical School Class of 2000.
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Arnold and Klein finally found someone who could understand their struggles— each other. They began dating in 2006 after meeting online, and said "I do" in a fairytale wedding ceremony two years later. The pair welcomed both son Will and daughter Zoey in 2013.