‘Survivor’ star-turned-Kentucky lawmaker proposes making sex with first cousin legal

Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News
·2 min read

Kentucky Republican representative Nick Wilson has submitted a proposal to remove first cousins from the list of relatives with whom sex is illegal in the Bluegrass State. But the “Survivor” star-turned-politician claims that wasn’t his intent.

Wilson sponsored House Bill 269 on Tuesday to amend Kentucky’s law stating “a person is guilty of incest when the person engages in sexual contact with a person to whom he or she knows to have a familial relationship with.”

Wilson asked to “remove first cousin from the list of familial relationships.”

Existing legislation forbids sexual relationships with a parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, great-grandparent, great-grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, sibling or first cousin.

On Wednesday, Wilson, who won season 37 of “Survivor” in 2018, clarified his intentions on Facebook.

“During the drafting process, 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,” he wrote. “During today’s session, I will withdraw HB 269 and refile a bill with the ‘first cousin’ language intact.”

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Wilson said the purpose of the bill is to add “sexual contact” to Kentucky’s incest statute, which is now limited to sexual intercourse.

“This is a bill to combat a problem of familial and cyclical abuse that transcends generations of Kentuckians,” he added. “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.”

Wilson’s alleged error was mocked on social media and across the internet. Kentucky-based news aggregate site Fark.com ran the headline “Kentucky Republican pushes the most Kentucky Republican bill you can imagine.”

Wilson, 33, ran unopposed for the state house in 2022.