Featured Image Credit: Amazon Prime Extreme Love
Topics: TV And Film, Sex and Relationships
Ali Condon
Topics: TV And Film, Sex and Relationships
Reality television can be the source of some pretty weird romances, but at the end of the day, all it boils down to for viewers is two people who are in love.
That's with the exception of first cousins Michael Lee and Angela Paeng, who shocked their family - and viewers - when they decided to get together.
Angie and Michael grew up in Utah and were always close as kids - that's primarily because Angie's dad and Michael's mum are brother and sister.
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Fondly looking back on their childhood, Michael told Extreme Love about a time in second grade when he and Angela slow danced in the closet together and got caught kissing.
When Angela and Michael's parents realised what they were up to, they decided to keep the cousins apart for a while, much like Romeo and Juliet, if you ask Angela.
As they got older, Angela and Michael both married other people and subsequently got divorced.
When the pair were finally reunited at a family gathering, they couldn't deny that the spark was still there.
It wasn't long before the two admitted their feelings for each other and decided to start seeing each other.
Dating your cousin is one thing, but having to tell your family about it is another.
To break the news to their family, Angela and Michael decided to go all-out and posted a graphic tongue-on-tongue kissing photo to their family Facebook page.
Funnily enough, that didn't seem to get any family members on board.
"They were shocked and horrified," Michael recalled.
The couple seem relatively unbothered by their family's reaction, though, and have even gotten married - though in Colorado, since it's illegal in Utah.
In 2019, the couple were expecting their first child together, but the doctor sadly couldn't find a heartbeat.
Six months later, though, the cousins confirmed that they were expecting again, and welcomed son Eric in 2020.
Unfortunately, the couple haven't found much more support online - either from their Michael and Angie Foundation Facebook page, or from the Twitter reaction to their Extreme Love episode.
"As if being cousins wasn’t bad enough. Why do they have to kiss like that?!" tweeted one viewer who watched the couple's story.
"I just knew I was going to see some cousin lovin’ on this show at some point," complained another.
"The kissing cousins are hard to watch. I feel they play up on their relationship for shock factor," added a third.