“Duck Dynasty” stars Willie and Korie Robertson shared the faith-based marriage advice that has guided their lasting partnership.
The reality TV personalities, who tied the knot in 1992, have spent more than three decades building a family, a multimillion-dollar business and a television empire together. Now, Willie, 54, and Korie, 52, have launched their latest joint venture, the faith-and-family media platform EKKL Entertainment.
During an interview with Fox News Digital, the couple, who are devout Christians, explained how they keep their marriage thriving despite the pressures of working together.
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“I think Korie and I pull back to our faith, which is very important,” Willie said. “We believe in something bigger than us.”
“The aspects of it are love and joy and peace and patience, kindness, that’s helpful. Gentleness. I mean, all these things are that’s the core of our faith,” he continued. “And so those are the things that we try to implement. Not just with everybody else in our life, but we implemented that in our marriage as well. And we try to treat each other like that as well.”
Willie noted that he and Korie had seen successful and unsuccessful relationships and intentionally chosen the practices they wanted to emulate.
“We’ve had great examples of that in our families, from our parents to other people to where we see how that works,” he explained. “We also see things that don’t, and we see people that can get themselves in a bad way, and then their marriage falls apart. And we’ve seen that.”
“Not just in Hollywood or people that we know that are famous,” Willie added. “We see it up and down our street here, you know, like, like you don’t have to be bad to start bickering with each other and fighting and let things go in.”
Willie pointed to simple habits that the couple has adopted throughout their 34-year marriage. He explained that putting their faith into practice means approaching their relationship with patience, kindness and grace while making a conscious effort to resolve conflicts before they grow.
“Those are the things we do — things we’ve learned from our faith,” Willie said. “Not going to bed while you’re angry. I mean, these are just things that you put into your life and say, ‘Oh, this is helpful.’ And so I think that’s part of things we do to keep drawn together and keep being together on the same page.”
Korie shared how the couple live out their faith, explaining that it is the lens through which the Robertsons approach marriage, parenting and work.
“I would say our faith informs everything we do,” she said. “It’s not just like what we do on Sunday morning at church or whatever. It’s how we parent, how we are as husband and wife, how we’re as coworkers and all that. So it informs everything.”
Korie noted that their shared sense of purpose is also what led the couple to launch their latest venture together.
“I think it’s exciting to be on a mission together,” she said. “Like we are, as a family, we are on our mission together to spread the love of Jesus and let people know about him. And so we can do that in — any of us can do that in a hundred thousand different ways.”
“For us, for our family, it is through entertainment and God has kind of put us in this position to get to do it,” Korie added. “And so we keep just saying yes and opening the door whenever someone knocks, I guess.”
Though Willie and Korie grew up in the same West Monroe, Louisiana, community, the couple noted that they came from very different worlds.
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“I grew up in a neighborhood. I was a yuppie,” Korie said with a laugh.
“I grew up really poor on the end of a dead-end dirt road,” Willie recalled.
The pair first met as elementary school students at a Christian summer camp in Louisiana. Though Willie went to public school while Korie attended private school, the two continued to see each other through church youth group and around the West Monroe area.
Willie and Korie, who now share six children, began dating seriously after high school and married less than a year later.
Korie told Fox News Digital that despite their different backgrounds, they found commonality in the values their families shared.
“I think for us, it’s like the externals did look very different growing up,” she said. “We definitely looked very different. His dad had a big beard and wore camo and my dad actually had a little beard. It was a manicured beard and wore a suit, you know?”
Korie continued, “And so from the externals, it looked different, but the things that were important actually looked the same. Faith first and foremost, hospitality, generosity, kindness to strangers are to your neighbor. Like, those things.”
Willie said that he believed their contrasting backgrounds have ultimately strengthened both their marriage and their business partnership by giving them complementary perspectives and skill sets.
“Actually, it has been helpful,” he explained. “You think about all the stuff men ever do, like the perspective I have of country people, poor people, you know. Like that’s how I grew up.”
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“You come from a business world where your family was successful in business,” he told Korie. “You had to figure out how to build things, build businesses, build retail business. So I think when you bring that together, it’s powerful.”
“There’s not as many blind spots,” Willie continued. “Like if we both had come from the same neighborhood, there would obviously be some blind spots.”
Willie and Korie recalled the major ice storm that hit Louisiana in late January 2026, which left many residents, including them, without power for several days.
The duo explained that they relied on each other’s strengths including Willie’s hunting and fishing skills and Korie’s business acumen, to help their family get through the outage and deal with the aftermath.
“When the ice storm happened, and we had no electricity, we needed him to help us survive,” Korie said.
“Nobody was worried,” Willie said. “We were going to eat and figure it out.”
“And I could read the contracts,” Korie added as the two laughed.
“The insurance law, you know, the claims on what we’re gonna have to turn in the insurance, which I never would have figured out,” Willie said.
“That’s how our stuff works,” Korie noted.
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While speaking with Fox News Digital, Willie and Korie shared the inspiration behind their new venture, EKKL.
The Robertsons explained that raising their six children in the spotlight opened their eyes to media consumption, but it was seeing their young grandchildren mimic movie lines and songs in real time that made them realize just how much the content they were watching was impacting and shaping them.
Korie explained that this observation led them to create EKKL, which is a faith-based entertainment platform that they describe as a “one-stop shop” for families seeking trusted movies, TV shows, podcasts, children’s content and daily devotionals.
“It is definitely part of us coming in to try to help solve a problem that I think all families are having right now,” she said. “Like, what is the safe space for our kids to consume entertainment? There’s so much out there. There are so many access points to our kids’ hearts and minds. And, you know, how do we protect that in them?”
“And also, how do we find good content for us as adults?” Korie added.
The Robertsons said they believe there is an untapped appetite for faith-and family-centered storytelling, arguing that Hollywood has underestimated what audiences want to watch.
“I think when you’re talking about faith and you’re a family — those are things that bring us back together,” Willie said. “I think part of the problem with Hollywood is they’re not — they don’t know what to put out. They’re like, ‘Oh, this group may not like this’ and we’re all in a family, you know? And these are stories that can pull us hopefully back together.”
“I would say there is room in Hollywood for it,” Korie said. “And we’ve proven over and over again that that’s what people want to see. But unfortunately, sometimes the perception is that, ‘Oh, it has to be trashy’ or it have all this like content in it to be successful.’ When we’re saying like, wait, maybe that’s just because that’s what you’re advertising, that’s you’re giving us, that’s that you’re putting out there.”
“But if we offered something else to people, maybe they would prove to us that that’s actually what they want.”
