With multiple wives, 18 kids, a catfish scandal, a separation, and a divorce, Sister Wives definitely has its fair share of drama. The TLC reality series following polygamist Kody Brown and his wives, Meri Brown, Janelle Brown, Christine Brown and Robyn Brown, wrapped season 17 with a shocking bombshell announcement that Kody and Janelle are officially separated after almost 30 years of marriage.
The estranged spouses confirmed the news in the trailer for the upcoming One-on-One special after a tumultuous season that saw Kody facing a divorce from his third wife, Christine.
Though the 53-year-old TV personality and salesman assured ET in February 2021 that “there will never be a fifth wife,” understanding the status of his current marriages can still be a challenge given recent events.
Here ET breaks down where Kody stands with his four wives:
Meri Brown
As Kody’s first wife, Meri and Kody married in April 1990. They share 27-year-old child, Leon Brown. The pair had a strong relationship until Meri’s 2015 catfishing scandal in which she entered into an online relationship with someone she thought to be a man but who turned out to be a woman. The couple went to therapy in the aftermath and have since revealed that they are no longer intimate and that Kody no longer lives in Meri’s home.
“I miss physical intimacy with him,” Meri admitted in a January 2022 reunion episode of Sister Wives.
“I’m not going to ever be in a conjugal relationship with her because I’m not going to go through that emotional torture ever again,” Kody said. “There’s a point where intimacy is just damage.”
Kody added that he would never feel “safe” being intimate with Meri again, noting that it wasn’t the catfishing that led him to this decision, but rather that the catfishing “woke me up” to this truth.
Meri has since opened up about her decision to stay married to Kody despite the fact that he’s no longer interested in a relationship with her.
“My strength is sticking around and seeing if Kody would be willing to work on a relationship,” Meri said in a November 2022 episode. “So I leave that door open, but I’m not pining away for it.”
Kody left Meri with little hope of reconciliation, saying, “I don’t really consider myself married to Meri. If she wanted to move on and marry another, she wouldn’t get an argument with me. I don’t believe that we can ever be functional and I don’t believe that I will ever be emotionally safe with her.”
Janelle Brown
Janelle and Kody tied the knot in January 1993, marking Kody’s second marriage. Janelle had previously been married to Adam Barber — Meri’s brother — from 1988 to 1990. She and Kody share six kids together.
In the trailer for the upcoming One-on-One special, Janelle and Kody both confirmed that they are officially separated after almost 30 years of marriage. The strain on their relationship was documented on this past season of Sister Wives as Janelle lent her support to Christine amid her divorce from Kody and struggled with being put in the middle of Kody’s fractured relationship with their older children, particularly, sons Gabriel and Garrison.
“It basically feels like I’m being forced to choose between my children and this group. I don’t feel like my children are welcome,” Janelle explained in Sunday’s season finale of the TLC reality series.
In the trailer for the upcoming special, Kody shared, “Janelle has made it pretty clear to me that she’s enjoying her life without me.”
Christine Brown
Christine became Kody’s third wife in 1994 and she shares six kids with him. But in November 2021, Christine announced her decision to divorce her ex after a difficult few years.
At the time, Christine said in a statement, “Kody and I have grown apart and I have made the difficult decision to leave,” noting that they will “continue to be a strong presence in each other’s lives as we parent our beautiful children and support our wonderful family.”
Kody also released a statement saying, “Christine’s decision to leave comes with a great deal of sadness. We enjoyed many years together and I have a large amount of respect and admiration for her. Although we are moving forward on different paths, we will always remain committed parents.”
Fans got to see the split play out on season 17 of the TLC show as Christine became increasingly independent in recent seasons, distancing herself from Kody and his other wives. Due to the fact that she and Kody were “spiritually married” and Christine no longer considers herself to be a polygamist, she has since declared that they are divorced.
Christine has since noted that she plans to only enter into monogamous relationships from here on out.
Christine and her daughter, Truely, have relocated to Utah to be closer to her other kids and her parents. In October 2022, she opened up to ET about her new life in Utah.
“I’m single now, right? So I kind of just decide what I want to do and then do it. It’s been just very, very simple,” she shared at the time. “Everything’s just a lot easier as far as just planning and day-to-day life.”
She also added that since leaving Kody she feels “more confident” like an “enormous weight has been lifted.”
As for whether or not she will remain on the show, Christine said she has no plans to leave despite no longer being married to Kody.
“I made a promise to Kody and everybody else that I would stay in Sister Wives as long as we have the show just to be fair,” she said. “It’s what our family’s been doing for so long. I feel like it would be disloyal if I decided to not be part of the show.”
She added that much of what she’s filming will be of her time with Janelle.
“So as far as Sister Wives goes, I’ll still be doing things with Janelle quite regularly,” Christine said, adding of a potential spin-off, “As far as a spin-off, dude, I’m totally open, no idea what it looks like, but absolutely, that’d be just fun as heck.”
Robyn Brown
Though Kody considers himself to be “spiritually married” to his four wives, he is only legally married to Robyn. The couple tied the knot in May 2010. They share three children and Robyn has three more children from a previous marriage to David Jessop. Kody’s desire to adopt Robyn’s three children from her previous marriage was ultimately the reason that Kody and Meri got legally divorced in 2014 and Kody and Robyn legally married that same year.
One big point of contention within the plural family tends to be the other three wives’ (past and present) relationship with Robyn, feeling that Kody often gives his fourth wife preferential treatment.
“I see Robyn regularly because there’s been no quarantining for Robyn because she’s done no traveling,” Kody told ET in February 2021.
Many of the other wives objected to the amount of time Kody spent with Robyn in the first year of the pandemic and to the allowances she received, such as the couple having a live-in nanny.
“There’s this, sort of, pecking order,” Kody said in the February 2022 reunion special. “Meri was really hard on Janelle and then Janelle and Meri were hard on Christine, and Janelle and Meri and Christine were hard on Robyn. And Robyn’s going, ‘I didn’t do this to you. I didn’t do this. Why are you this way?’ Frankly, other than Meri, I’m not sure the others would want to be her friend.”
Christine called out Robyn for being Kody’s “favorite” wife, citing the dynamic as one of the reasons her own marriage ended. And Janelle took issue with how Kody spoke about Robyn shortly before the news of their separation was announced.
“I have somebody in my life who’s fundamentally loyal to me, who sees me as the head of the family,” Kody told Janelle of Robyn in a recent episode. “I’m saying to you that you and I get that if you’re loyal to me.”
“I just can’t believe what he’s saying,” Janelle said on the show at the time. “Here he is blatantly saying what I’ve suspected. This person is loyal and treats me like the head of the household and if you really want to be a wife to me, this is how you have to be. I’m not going to be this person. I’m not going to become Robyn.”
Sister Wives One-on-One special will consist of three episodes airing Dec. 18, Jan. 1 and Jan. 8 at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.