A Kentucky state lawmaker and 2018 winner of the television competition Survivor had to hastily scrap a proposed measure that – if approved – would have unintentionally legalized sex between first cousins.
After correcting the gaffe within a day, Nick Wilson – a Republican representative in Kentucky’s house of representatives – expressed hope that the misstep would not doom a measure whose purpose is to combat familial abuse.
Wilson told the Guardian on Thursday that the entire episode was “frustrating” and “embarrassing”.
“Due to the subject matter of the legislation, it was obviously quite embarrassing,” Wilson said. “It was also frustrating that it blew up so quickly, just because I was on a TV show five years ago.
“I didn’t get a chance to fix the mistake – not even one day. I feel like most legislators would get that opportunity.”
Wilson introduced a bill on Tuesday which in effect proposed removing first cousins from a list of unlawful incestuous relationships.
A fierce backlash met the move quickly after a New York public defender and fellow Survivor alum, Eliza Orlins, went on TikTok to condemn Wilson’s proposal.
“Kentucky – like so many other places – is facing a lot of issues, and this is Nick’s top legislative priority,” Orlins said. “No matter what Nick’s weird priorities are, your voices matter, and when your voices are heard, it actually has an impact in local politics.”
After wishing a great day to her TikTok audience, she addressed Wilson directly. “Nick Wilson, I hope you have the day that you deserve,” she said.
Wilson subsequently reversed course and said it was an unintentional “mistake” to have omitted first cousins from a list of relationships that Kentucky law defined as incestuous if they involved sex.
“During the drafting process [of the bill], there was an inadvertent change, which struck ‘first cousins’ from the list of relationships included under the incest statute, and I failed to add it back in,” Wilson said in a statement. “During today’s session, I will withdraw [the measure] and refile a bill with the ‘first cousin’ language intact.”
Many US states, including Kentucky, outright prohibit marriages between first cousins, while 19 states and the District of Columbia allow such a union. Some states, like Arizona and Maine, allow marriages between first cousins with certain exceptions.
The commonwealth of Kentucky defines incest as: “deviate sexual intercourse [or] sexual contact with a person whom he or she knows to be his or her parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, great-grandparent, great-grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, brother, sister, first cousin, ancestor, or descendant”.
Wilson has since refiled the measure as house bill 289. And in addition to sexual intercourse, the measure adds “sexual contact” to the definition of incest.
The reintroduced bill also adds incest to the violent offender statute.
Wilson said his new bill made no other changes to current law.
After making changes to the bill, Wilson said: “This is a bill to combat a problem of familial and cyclical abuse that transcends generations of Kentuckians. I understand that I made a mistake, but I sincerely hope my mistake doesn’t hurt the chances of the corrected version of the bill. It is a good bill, and I hope it will get a second chance.”
Wilson also told the Guardian that he hoped the scrutiny he encountered leads to more awareness surrounding the issue of sexual abuse within family homes.
“There have been many foster parents and survivors of sexual abuse reach out to me to thank me for pursuing this change in law,” Wilson said. “The amount of hopefulness I get from those calls and emails are much greater than any feelings of embarrassment or frustration that I’ve experienced in the past two days.”
Wilson was previously a public defender and in 2022 ran unopposed for the state house representing its 82nd district. He competed in the reality TV show Survivor in 2018 and 2020 and was the competition’s champion in its 37th season.
