TLC is currently airing the fifth season of Welcome To Plathville, and it was assumed that one of the biggest story lines this season would be Kim Plath’s DUI arrest last year. However, it appears as though producers may be skipping over the whole thing without even a mention!?
Kim Plath DUI Timeline
Kim Plath rolled her Chevy Suburban into a Saint Marks, Florida ditch on June 10, 2022. From our previous post recapping Kim’s DUI and arrest:
After Kim was taken to a local hospital, she was given a series of tests that indicated intoxication. She told a police officer that she had “two 12-ounce margaritas” before attempting to drive to a friend’s house from her home in Cairo, Georgia. (It is assumed that the “friend’s house” was the Crawfordville, Florida home of her new boyfriend, Ken Palmer.)
According to the officer at the hospital, Kim “stated she did not know where she was or what road she was on when the crash occurred.”
Kim consented to a blood test. The results came back in September and indicated that Kim had a blood alcohol content between .161 and .162, which is more than double the Florida legal limit of .08.
After the blood test results came back, Kim was officially charged with DUI and a bench warrant was issued for her arrest on September 8, 2022. Kim’s attorney submitted a motion to have the bench warrant dismissed in hopes of avoiding an arrest, but that motion was denied.
Kim turned herself in on October 20, 2022. The resulting arrest and booking photo made headlines, and Starcasm was the first to link the October arrest to Kim’s car accident in June.
Kim Plath entered a plea of nolo-contendere and was found guilty of driving under the influence on February 28, 2023. Full details on Kim’s sentencing can be found at the link in the tweet below.
UPDATE – We now have the sentencing details from #Plathville mom Kim Plath's DUI conviction after she flipped her SUV into a ditch last June. #WelcomeToPlathville https://t.co/C1BtE4DnSH
— Starcasm (@starcasm) March 1, 2023
Welcome To Plathville skipping over Kim Plath’s DUI?
In the very first episode of Welcome To Plathville Season 5, Olivia and Ethan Plath were two months into their three-month European vacation. Based on social media posts made by the couple, their European trip was from June to August of 2022.
If the rest of the Plaths started filming at roughly the same time as Olivia and Ethan, that would mean Welcome To Plathville Season 5 started filming around August of 2022. That is a few weeks after Kim rolled her Suburban into a ditch in Florida.
It could make sense that Kim’s crash wasn’t mentioned early on because it’s not clear if the family knew about it. As mentioned above, the media didn’t know until Kim’s arrest in October of 2022.
Once Kim’s arrest made headlines, it would have been nearly impossible for the entire Plath family not to know.
By the time Welcome To Plathville Season 5 reaches Episode 8, the Plaths in Georgia, California, and Minnesota are all preparing for Christmas. Olivia and Ethan didn’t move to Minnesota until late November, so their segments had to have been filmed after that.
I seriously doubt Kim Plath would have put up her Christmas tree before October 20, so it is likely safe to assume that scene was filmed after she turned herself in and her mug shot made national headlines.
However, Episode 6 features a scene in which Barry Plath has a beach celebration in honor of Mercy Plath’s 10th birthday. Mercy was born in February of 2013, so that would mean this scene was shot in February of this year — a couple months after Christmas.
It’s clear that producers are intentionally leaving Kim’s DUI arrest off the show on purpose, but it’s unclear why. I assume it was at the request/demand of Kim?
Will Kim Plath’s DUI be on Welcome To Plathville?
There is still plenty of time for TLC to include Kim’s DUI on the show. They could try to spin the omission by saying Kim couldn’t talk about it while the case was still open.
If that is the case, then we will need a couple more months of filming time to elapse before Kim’s conviction in February of this year.
Producers could also simply fudge the timeline, like they did with Mercy’s birthday, and work the DUI in that way.
Kim Plath’s DUI would definitely make her main story line this season (moving on from Barry Plath and dating Isaac’s former co-worker and airplane co-owner, Ken Palmer) much more dramatic.
It’s clear that some of the Plath kids are going to have a very tough time accepting that their mother is dating someone new, especially since he is familiar to them.
Here’s a photo taken by Ken at the Plath’s house in April of 2022 and later shared on his infamous Facebook feed:
And another photo of Ken having dinner with the Plaths four days earlier:
The fact that Kim drank alcohol, then attempted to make the 52-mile drive to Ken’s house in Florida would most surely impact how some of the Plath kids felt about Kim dating Ken so soon! And it would be very interesting to hear Barry’s take on it!
Let’s not forget that one of the major things that started the feud between Kim Plath and Olivia Plath was the fact that Kim didn’t want Olivia and Ethan to have alcohol at their wedding. Olvia very reluctantly conceded to Kim’s demands.
This video has a clip of Olivia talking about the wedding disagreement, as well as Kim Plath explaining why she didn’t drink at the time:
I’m still optimistic that Kim’s DUI will be mentioned on Welcome To Plathville. Everyone knows that reality shows can omit a lot of actual reality, but it seems a bit too egregious not mentioning this important event at all.
To find out, keep tuning in for new episodes of Welcome To Plathville airing Tuesday nights at 10/9c on TLC!
Asa Hawks is a writer and editor for Starcasm. You can contact Asa via Twitter, Facebook, or email at starcasmtips(at)yahoo.com
