Ready for their closeup! The Busch family has always wanted to do a reality TV series, but they had to wait for their kids to get on board and grow up.
“It wasn’t the right time [before], because the kids were little and we wanted the kids to grow up and be normal and I have a childhood and not be in the public eye,” Christi Busch told Us Weekly exclusively on Tuesday, March 3. “But now they’re older and we just talked about it and they are ready to go.”
Beginning on Thursday, March 5, Christi, her husband, Billy Busch, and their seven children, will welcome viewers into their home in their new reality series, The Busch Family Brewed. Once the cameras were rolling, the family knew it was up to them to keep things real.
“Well, we had to tell the kids that we have to be authentic if we’re going to do this, so we have to just be ourselves,” Billy told Us. “Everybody was themselves and at the same time it allowed us to document the building of the first Busch-owned brewery since — for 150 years — that we’re building. So, it’s really been a fun time.”
The show, which airs on MTV, will follow the family, who are descendants of the Anheuser-Busch family, through their everyday lives as they continue to build their more than 150-year-old business, create a new brewery on their 700-acre estate and have nine people under one roof.
After fans of the company and its products showed interest in the family behind the famous name, the couple figured it was time to show who they really were.
“So many people have been interested in the Busch name and being Anheuser Busch,” Christi explained, noting people constantly asked, “Who are you guys, what do you do? You have a million kids, do you drink beer all day, do you just hang out and have fun, are you crazy?”
The decision to bring their family even more into the spotlight meant telling their story, their way.
“Let’s show them that first, we are normal people like everybody else,” the matriarch of the group said. “We have some big things and big toys, but we also fight big and love big and we are just a normal family at the end of the day.”
Billy added, “I want people to know that, I think we’re humble. We’re like everybody else.”
The series will document the family’s newest business venture, in addition to seeing where they’ve raised their kids in Missouri for years.
“We’re very thankful for what we’ve received. Our former business did really, really well. So, we were able to live on a beautiful farm in Missouri, 700 acres and we have a lot, but we give back a lot,” the patriarch of the Busch family revealed. “I think everybody understands the old saying that, ‘Who a lot is given a lot is expected.’ So, we all kind of live by that.”
What does that expansive farm look like? Well, there are Clydesdales, a lake, monkeys and lots of farm life.
“We just have normal, I guess not normal, but a normal farm type life,” Christi admitted to Us.
The parents of seven also revealed that they kept their kids grounded by not telling them all that their family business had purchased and acquired over the years, including the Busch Gardens and the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.
“When they were older and in school their friends would say, ‘You guys own Grant’s Farm, which is another big farm in St. Louis and you have SeaWorld and you have all this,’” Christi explained. “They’re, like, ‘Mom, is that true, do we have all this, our friends are telling us that we do?’”
She added: “I didn’t want them to think this is ours and we have this because it was really Anheuser Busch that had it all.”
The Busch Family Brewed premieres on MTV on March 5 at 9 p.m. ET.
