‘Bringing Up Bates’ Alum Katie Bates Reveals She’s ‘Lost Relationships’ With 90% of Her Family
Katie Bates Clark is opening up about another painful development in her personal life.
Katie Bates Clark reveals ‘complicated and painful’ issues with her family
In a Q&A shared on her Instagram Story on May 20, the Bringing Up Bates alum revealed that she is currently estranged from the majority of her family.
“A lot of people are confused by my decision to leave Tennessee, especially because from the outside it may look like I have a big support system here,” Katie replied to someone who wanted to know why she had decided to move away from her home state of Tennessee. “The truth is, sometimes things happening behind closed doors are a lot more complicated and painful than what people see publicly.”
“Recently I chose to address something that happened throughout my childhood that I wish I had the strength to address years ago,” she added. “Unfortunately after doing so I lost relationships with about 90% of my family. This has been incredibly heartbreaking and heavy to walk through.”
Katie did not share details about what past incidents led to the rift, or which family members were (or were not) standing by her. But in a follow-up Instagram Story on Friday, she said that not all of her family – which includes her 18 brothers and sisters – reacted well to her confronting her past trauma.
“After choosing to address painful things from my childhood I quickly learned that not everyone responds to honesty and healing with support,” Katie explained. “Some people choose silence!! Some choose distance. Some choose to minimize or avoid uncomfortable truths altogether. But when someone has been repeatedly harmed, staying silent or distancing yourself despite knowing the truth can become its own form of betrayal.”
“Neutrality doesn’t always equal innocence, and it certainly doesn’t equal support!” she continued. “I stayed silent for a long time and I’m not doing that anymore.”
‘Bringing Up Bates’ alum’s husband recently confessed to cheating
Katie, who spent her childhood appearing on her family’s Up TV show, has had a difficult time in the past few months. In January, she revealed that she’d had a miscarriage. Soon after, her husband of five years, Travis Clark, publicly confessed that he’d been unfaithful to his wife, with whom he shares two children. Both have since opened up about going to therapy and attempting to work through the issues in their marriage. While Katie has not said where she and her family are moving to, it’s clear she’s looking forward to a fresh start
“I know from the outside this move might not fully make sense to everyone, but it’s something we’ve spent a lot of time praying through and processing together,” she wrote in a recent Instagram update. “It’s not about running or pretending a new place magically fixes everything… life doesn’t work like that. More than anything, we’ve been trying to make decisions that support healing, peace, spiritual growth, and a healthy environment for our family.”
“We still have things we’re walking through and learning through,” she added. “[B]ut I’m really excited for what’s ahead and everything this next chapter could hold for our family.”
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