Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson is in the middle of a whole new controversy today for telling men that they should marry 15-year-old girls.
The 67-year-old Robertson was only recently reinstated by A&E , the cable network that airs Duck Dynasty , after a nine-day suspension for the controversial comments he made about gay people in a GQ Magazine interview. Now the network will be forced to deal with his latest statements.
The video in which Robertson is heard making his remarks about underage girls was posted on YouTube December 30, and summarized in an article on the entertainment site E! Online . The clip dates from 2009 and shows Robertson, sporting his familiar chest-length beard, addressing a Christian group and for some reason, dispensing his special brand of romantic advice .
The Duck Dynasty patriarch first describes his ideal woman. Not surprisingly, she can cook.
“Make sure that she can cook a meal,” Robertson advises the male members of the congregation. “You need to eat some meals that she cooks, check that out.”
He also insists that the perfect wife “carries her Bible” and can “pick your ducks.”
But how would a man find such an ideal mate? That’s where Robertson’s marriage tips really get interesting.
“They got to where they getting hard to find, mainly because these boys are waiting till they get to be about 20 years old before they marry them,” says Robertson. “Look, you wait till they get to be 20 years old the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket. You got to marry these girls when they are about 15 or 16. They’ll pick your ducks. You need to check with mom and dad about that, of course.”
Of course, it remains to be seen how A&E will respond to the revelation of Roberston’s seeming advocacy of statutory rape — though in fairness, 16 is legal marriage age in Louisiana; 15 is not — but according to one expert, the network’s decision will be driven as most commercial decisions are, by the bottom line.
“It ( Duck Dynasty ) is just too important a revenue generator for the network,” Abby Klaassen, editor of Advertising Age magazine told CBS News . “But there are a couple of things we don’t yet know and one is how advertisers are going to react come mid-January when the next season of the show premieres. They could very quietly pull their support and that would change the economics equation.”
Klaassen pointed out that advertisers will make up their minds about whether to continue pumping dollars into Duck Dynasty based not only on Robertson’s remarks about gays, but also on comments that might surface from Robertson’s past or those that “he or potentially any other family members will say in the future.”
Klaassen was speaking before the new video of the Duck Dynasty star advising men to marry underage girls had come to light.
Watch the video and you be the judge of Phil Robertson’s latest remarks.