Willie and Korie Robertson starred on their family’s reality show Duck Dynasty from 2012 until 2017. These days, they are starring on the follow-up reality show Duck Dynasty: The Revival.
In a new interview, Willie and Korie are crediting their “deep roots of faith” with the longevity that they’ve had on reality TV.
Robertsons Sound Off
“I heard a speaker one time, he was talking about how it used to be like school, education, the church, the government, like all these kind of things had a similar kind of effect on people,” Korie told Sage Steele on her podcast earlier this week.
“He’s like, ‘Now, all these things are like tiny hills in the shadow of entertainment because of all the time we spend consuming entertainment today, podcasts and all of that,'” she continued. “And, so, that’s why our family — we never got out once we got in. We were like, ‘Wow, this is actually a means to point people to Jesus, and we need to be here. And there’s a lot of Christians that are scared of entertainment because there’s this perception of darkness.'”
Korie went on to say that when they first signed on to do a reality show, people told them, “‘Your kids are going to end up on drugs. You’re going to get divorced. Like what are you doing?’ It was like, ‘Don’t do it.’ And we were like, ‘No, we need to be in entertainment.’”
Willie Speaks Out
Willie was quick to agree with his wife. Indeed, he explained that if their show didn’t take their time slot, another program would that likely wouldn’t have their same positive, faith-based message.
“If you think about television as we used to think about it, like there’s only 24 hours and everybody — ESPN’s competing with A&E, and they’re competing with ABC and CBS. And so you’ve got only so much [room],” Willie said of what television was like in 2012.
“So, we looked at it like, ‘Well, most of its garbage or dark or just, you know,’ and so we thought, ‘If not us, who else will this be?’” he added.
Korie chimed back in to say that this quickly became a “real mission for our family.” She then admitted that since doing reality TV was a “whirlwind,” they had to rely on their “deep roots” of Christian faith.
Fans Find Robertsons’ Church
“I’m so thankful we stayed in our hometown,” she stated. “We had our church family, we had some of those things that were already deep, but, you know, it was hard. There was a lot of, we were so busy. Church got different.”
Fans quickly realized where the Robertsons went to church. They soon began showing up at the church and asking for photos with the family during services.
The Robertsons’ fellow churchgoers who they’d known for years saw the situation as “cool,” but also as a little “rude” and “weird.”
“And then you get criticism from the church,” Korie lamented. “It was hard, and so we’re so grateful that we had those deep roots having to, whenever the show ended, of finding ourselves again.”
Though this was “hard” on them, Korie added that both she and Willie “came from families of faith, so we never lost it. We never lost our faith. We stayed very rooted in it, but we had to be really intentional about it.”
Willie’s Faith Gets ‘Deeper’
As for Willie, he revealed that his “faith is far more deeper” than before they started Duck Dynasty because their lives were simpler back then.
“Would you be as faithful if you had more money, if everybody knew who you were, if everybody was telling you how great you were or how terrible?” he questioned. Korie agreed, rhetorically asking, “Are you going to stay even when you have the world at your offer?”
“I think the fact that we ended the show with a prayer, there are tons of people in this country and really all over that world that appreciated that,” Willie stated. “That was unusual. You didn’t see prayers at the end of a show. And [fans] really resonated with that.”
Korie concluded by describing their reality show as being a “family sitcom.” She said that even though it’s been off the air for nearly a decade, “people still come up to us in tears about what the show did for them. How they watched it with their dad on his deathbed or how ‘my husband became a Christian because of watching your show.'”
“For us, it opened our eyes to the power of entertainment and how it is shaping our culture,” she said.
In a world where so much of reality television really is “garbage,” Duck Dynasty was a true breath of fresh air. We applaud the Robertson family for continuing to use their platform to spread a wholesome message of Christian faith and love.
God bless you, Robertson family!