‘Welcome to Plathville’ Preview: Kim Claims Ex Barry Never Checked on Her After Her DUI, Money Issues (Exclusive)
Kim Plath reflects on the tough times she endured following her split from husband Barry Plath on this week’s episode of Welcome to Plathville — including a DUI and money woes.
“I think I’m pretty good [at] handling my money, but Barry is beyond good with money,” Kim, 52, explains in Us Weekly’s exclusive sneak peek at the Tuesday, July 29, episode of the TLC series.
She quips, “He has a career, and I spent 25 years supporting him in his career because I’ve been raising kids for 25 years.”
Kim, who filed for divorce from Barry, 57, in June 2024, notes that it was a “big adjustment” to have to handle her own finances, claiming her estranged husband didn’t help at all with the transition.
“There have been disagreements that Barry and I’ve had because I’m hurting financially,” she confesses.
What made matters worse for Kim, was that soon after she split from Barry, she got a DUI, which derailed her life even more. (Us confirmed in October 2022 that Kim was arrested in Georgia for driving under the influence, property damage and personal injury.)
“Early on, after Barry and I separated, I made some bad decisions one night and I ended up getting a DUI,” she reveals, sharing that “no one else was involved” in the accident and she was “fine” despite being arrested for being under the influence.
Kim remembers having court fees and lawyer fees because of her DUI and she wasn’t allowed to “drive for a year” or “many months” after the incident. She also had “regular testing” to make sure she wasn’t under the influence and was sentenced to community service.
“That was a really hard year for me because it happened right as I was kind of starting to get, you know, my new life established. And I just made everything really, really difficult,” she adds.
While Kim vows that it’s not something she’ll “ever repeat again,” she tells the cameras that the DUI made her even more upset with Barry and how he seemingly left her to fend for herself after 24 years of marriage.
“There was never a time that Barry came to me and said, ‘You know, I see you’re drinking. I see you got a DUI. Are you OK, Kim? Are you struggling with stuff?’” she claims.
Kim gets choked up while reflecting on how alone she felt at that time, alleging that Barry never said, “‘Do you want to talk, like, I care about you as a person? And I’m just wondering, you know, we spent 25 years together. We had 10 kids together. I’m just curious if you’re OK.’ He never asked.”
Kim and Barry introduced their family to the world in 2019 with the premiere of Welcome to Plathville, which consists of nine children: Ethan, Hosanna, Micah, Moriah, Lydia, Isaac, Amber, Cassia and Mercy. The pair’s 10th child, son Joshua, died in 2008 at 17 months following an accident on their family farm where the child was run over by a vehicle.
In June 2022, Kim and Barry announced their separation after being married more than two decades. Fans saw their pre-split struggles during season 4 of the reality show.
“After considerable thought and discussion, we have decided to end our marriage,” the exes told Us in a joint statement at the time. “While this was not an easy decision, we know it’s the best choice for both of us. We have been through many highs and lows in our 24 years of marriage and as we navigate this new chapter in our lives, we will coparent our amazing children.”
Two years later, Kim filed for divorce and revealed their date of separation as December 23, 2021. During the season 7 premiere earlier this month, Kim revealed it had been “over three years” since they called it quits, and they were not legally divorced.
“We’re both eager to have a settlement here, but we’re standing on each side of the Grand Canyon, and we’ve still got this gap that we can’t bridge,” Barry told the cameras during the July 22 episode, noting it wasn’t “going to be easy” to continue to coparent without a resolution.
Welcome to Plathville airs on TLC Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET.