Four years before William K. “Billy” Busch met Christi, his present-day wife and co-star of Busch Family Brewed on MTV, he was involved with a woman named Angela Whitson, who gave birth to their daughter, Scarlett Martina Busch, on June 1, 1983. Will this oldest Busch daughter be featured on the MTV reality show? That seems unlikely.
Here’s what we know about Scarlett and her relationship with her father.
Billy and Angela Got Embroiled In a Nasty Custody Battle
In 1989, Whitson sued Busch alleging that when Scarlett had gone to visit him in 1988, he “unlawfully detained the minor child without good cause and with the intent to deprive [Whitson] of her custody rights.” However, the 2014 book Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America’s Kings of Beer by William Knoedelseder tells a different story.
That biography of the Busch family alleges that what really happened was that Whitson and Scarlett were taken care of by Busch when Scarlett was little — Whitson had a condo, a car, and a $3500/month stipend to take care of the little girl, who had her own room and her own horse at the family’s estate. But by the fall of 1987, Whitson was addicted to crystal meth and suddenly moved her children to California. Whitson also had a son, Ashly, from her ex-husband Robert, prior to her relationship with Busch.
In the summer of 1988, Busch allegedly got a call from Whitson’s great-aunt who told him the children were being neglected, so he flew to California and brought them back to St. Louis. Whitson sued and a juvenile court granted him temporary custody of both children because Whitson admitted to having given consent for Busch to take them. Whitson appealed the decision, claiming Busch was intending to deprive her of her custody rights, but the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the ruling in 1989.
The court ruled that Busch be granted “full and sole physical and legal custody” of Scarlett, with Whitson “permitted to have the child with her in accordance with the visitation schedule recommended” by the lower court. Busch was ordered to pay $700/month in child support as long as Whitson lived within 150 miles of Clayton, Missouri.
Whitson died in 1999 at the age of 33.
It’s Unclear When Scarlett’s Relationship With Her Father Soured
Despite Busch being awarded custody of Scarlett, their relationship was fractured at some point. In 2016, when Billy was trying to buy Grant’s Farm, the Busch family estate, from his siblings, his reasoning was that he wanted to preserve his family’s legacy, rather than have the family trust sell the estate to the St. Louis Zoo.
According to STL Mag, Scarlett took to Facebook during the whole ordeal and wrote, “It’s hard to believe that after the neglect and abandonment of his oldest daughter that his family legacy is truly that important to him or that he values family the way he claims… What kind of man after dismissing his oldest daughter uses family nobility and honor as a way to shine his rusty halo in the public eye?”
Busch did not comment directly on her Facebook post, but through a spokesperson said that he removed Scarlett from his life “for very solid reasons. It’s personal; it’s confidential.”
Busch married his current wife, Christi, circa 1990 and they started their family in roughly 1991-92; their oldest son, Billy Jr., is 28.
Scarlett Is Definitely Aware of the MTV Reality Show
The show refers to Busch’s brood as a “seven-pack of kids,” which Scarlett responded to on Facebook when the show was announced. The post has since been deleted, but the River Front Times has a screengrab that shows her writing, “7-pack. Thanks dad.”
There are also comments on her Facebook in reference to that post that have not been deleted, which you can see above. Someone named Jeremy writes, “I’m confused. You had the limelight. Good life as what I would believe being a Busch” and in a subsequent comment, he references her “seven-pack” comment.
“That’s an entirely different post about my father and his families (sic) reality show,” she responds.
So since it sounds like the show has omitted Busch’s eighth (but actually first) child and that she and her father did not have an amicable split, it seems highly unlikely she’ll be seen or even mentioned on The Busch Family Brewed.
The Busch Family Brewed airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.
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