Demi and Bret Engemann are ready to open up about their backstory. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives couple is known to poke fun at the 16-year age gap in their relationship, but one of Demi’s jokes seems to have gone to far. She clarified that despite the online chatter, Bret did not babysit her back when she was a child.
The rumor seems to have started from a 2023 TikTok Demi posted, in which she insinuated that she knew Bret when she was nine, and he would’ve been 25. “I knew him through a family friend growing up, but he was so much older than me, so when I was nine years old, he was married to his first wife and having babies,” Demi said. “I was very aware of his existence. I thought he was so cute, like an innocent little girl crush.”
This timeline went on to be reported by People, which helped it go viral earlier this year. Somehow, the idea that Bret was Demi’s babysitter around this time got thrown into the rumor mill as well, but Demi shut it all down during her March 15 appearance on the I Do, Part 2 podcast.
“We did not know each other when I was nine years old,” Demi said, admitting she may have fudged the truth on social media. “I met Bret when I was 21 years old at our good family friend’s funeral. I’m kind of to blame for that [rumor]. Because it was the satire time of TikTok where people are just going after our age gap relationship. So then we just play into it.”
Demi said that she didn’t expect her offhand comment to get so out of hand. “And then he was my babysitter and then he was best friends with my parents. The thing just keeps getting spun and spun,” Demi said. So I take full responsibility for starting that whole thing.”
“It’s my job to clear it up,” she continued. “We met when I was a beyond legal adult and we both were married to different people. It was not at all what people are saying on the internet. … It’s so wild to think about because there’s so many connections [between us] but I genuinely never met Bret until that funeral.”
