Big & Rich‘s Big Kenny and his wife, stylist Christiev Alphin, run a hectic household raising their four sons in Nashville. You can get a glimpse into that world on their one-hour special, Big Kenny and Family, premiering Wednesday night on TLC.
The idea for this special has been brewing for about five years now. Friends of the celebrity couple started telling them they should really capture their “crazy, big life” with a TV show. At first, that idea didn’t sit well with Christiev.
She tells ABC Radio, “What we were so used to as normal, when people would come in and always say that, it would almost throw me back going, ‘Well, what is so abnormal about us that we should be on a TV show?’ It really took a while to grasp the idea of ‘Why?'”
Kenny and Christiev admit their lives are very intense as they juggle their careers with parenting their kids. They didn’t want a TV production coming in and throwing off that delicate balance. It all came down to finding a team of people who would allow their family to go on as normal while filming.
“A lot of the decision came around to timing with that,” Kenny explains. “To come into a situation with the right people that we felt we had enough control in it.”
The couple insists they didn’t coach their kids on what to say or how to act while shooting Big Kenny and Family.
Kenny says, “I’m not telling my children to do anything on camera unless they just want to. Well, we just happen to have the kinds of kids that kinda dig that. You know, they make little movies on their own time anyway. They kind of like being in front of it.”
One thing the cameras captured beautifully is the love and laughter always present in Big Kenny and Christiev’s home.
He adds, “You know, the tone is funny. There is an intensity that goes on in our life. We work hard to make sure there maintains an essence of happiness in it.”
Big Kenny and Family airs Wednesday night at 10 ET on TLC.
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