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Escaping Polygamy's Jessica Christensen: I Worked 16 Hours a Day on a Cattle Ranch at Age 14

US Weekly/September10, 2016

By Ryan Gajewski

All work and no play? Jessica Christensen opens up about her tough childhood in Escaping Polygamy's season 2 finale on Sunday, September 11, as seen in Us Weekly's exclusive sneak peek.

The A&E unscripted series' preview clip shows Christensen revealing that she started working at a cattle ranch when she was just 8 years old. Her family belongs to the polygamist Salt Lake City–based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which owns the ranch.

"I moved pipe and herded cows, and then I worked for an Order slaughterhouse, killing and preparing the meat from the cows for all the Order members," she tells the camera. "We shot them, we hung them, we let the blood drain out and processed the meat for the Order. We'd get all the meat ready, and then we'd bring it to church on Sunday and sell it to all the Order members."

The footage includes Christensen pointing out to her friend that she would work day and night shifts back-to-back, getting just an hour of sleep in between.

"That may be seem normal to somebody who is an adult, but I was not an adult," she says to the camera. "I was 14 years old doing that. After eighth grade, I was no longer allowed to go to school. I only worked."

A previously released clip from this season showed former FLDS member Andrea Brewer revealing that her dad made her eat her own vomit.

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