Kody Brown Went Years Without Seeing His Grandchildren
Though much of the family was in attendance when Janelle and Kody's oldest Logan wed now-wife Michelle Petty in October 2022, they weren't really feeling the love.
"You saw Madison take her kids and scuttle them away from me," Kody complained to Robyn in the Oct. 6 episode, noting that his daughter hadn't told him she was expecting her third baby, daughter Josephine, who arrived in February 2023. "She never told me she was pregnant."
Frankly, Maddie doesn't tell her dad much of anything with the two rarely speaking.
"Really, Maddie doesn't have any contact with him," Janelle explained of why her daughter steered clear of Kody at the wedding. "She is very protective of her children. Kody has not been there since Evie was born and Evie's three-and-a-half. And she didn't want him to just drop in and like, be like, 'Oh, I'm your grandpa,' and them be like, 'What? Who is this guy?'"
Kody's take? “It’s unrealistic expectation for grandparents to be in their grandchildren’s lives all the time,” he said, referencing Maddie's life in North Carolina, “especially if you move your children to an entirely different coast. I have work and a life in Flagstaff."
Kody Brown Wanted His Kids to Apologize to Robyn Brown
While it's clear that Kody and his adult children have very different viewpoints of their ongoing estrangement, one sticking point is his demanding some sort of mea culpa.
"After the COVID scare was over and we all went back to our normal lives, we still couldn't reconcile as a family because Kody felt like the boys needed to give an apology to him and to Robyn, especially to Robyn," Janelle shared of her sons in the Oct. 13 episode. "And after it sort of morphed into this, well, they just need to come and talk to me."
Kody's issue, Janelle continued, was that he felt his kids hadn't been loyal to him "and the most precious person in this family who's given her heart and soul has been disrespected or some bulls--t like that," she summed up. "And I’m like, 'Whatever Kody. Yeah, whatever.'"
Gabriel shared a similar stance, describing one conversation with his father. "He kept like phrasing it like I owed him an apology," he recounted to Janelle. "Eventually I was just like, 'Hey, unless you're, like, actually ready to have a relationship and fix things, then we're not going to talk anymore.' He came back a couple of days later and texted me. He's like, 'Hey, I've been, like, thinking about what you've been saying. I forgive you, Please forgive me.' I was like, 'Forgive me for what?'"
Kody Brown Only Sees One of Janelle Brown's Kids
Of the six children Kody shares with Janelle, he only sees his youngest, Savanah. "It's not frequently, but every couple months he'll call and they'll go out," Janelle described in the Oct. 13 episode. "The rest of the kids don't really have much of any kind of connection with him."
As for Savanah—who graduated from high school in 2023—she feels her four older brothers have taken on that father figure role, the teen already confessing to Janelle that she'd tap her siblings to walk her down the aisle one day.
"I've talked to Savanah about it and she's like, 'Look, I just have come to realize that this is who he is," detailed Janelle. "'He's going to be kind of that dad who shows up and we have a lot of fun and then he's gone. I can meet him where he's at. It's OK.'"
Janelle, however, is less forgiving.
"I'm just so frustrated with Kody," she lamented. "Look, I've seen this happen. I have several women I've worked with over the years who divorced, and then the father just goes MIA with the kids."
Gabriel Brown Said He'd Be Fine Never Seeing Dad Kody Brown Again
Early on in their father-son rift, "Gabriel took it very hard because Kody was someone who would take Gabriel with him on business trips," described Janelle, saying that Kody was "a totally engaged father" up until the past few years.
And while Gabriel is somewhat flummoxed over what he did to anger his father, he said during the Oct. 13 episode, "I told Dad that if he doesn't change and he can't take accountability, then I just won't ever see him again. And I'm perfectly OK with that."
As Janelle put it, "He's at peace that his dad is not in his life. And, you know, that's what I hope for all of my kids. And I think they're all getting here."
For his part, Kody also seems resigned to the situation.
"I'm really sorry that Gabriel feels that way," he shared in a confessional. "I have reached out to him multiple times only to get rejected. But it wasn't from a lack of trying on my part."
Kody Brown Feared Meri Brown Would Trash Talk Him
Meri may have been the last wife to leave Kody, but she officially divided their love in late 2022, by requesting—and receiving—what their church calls a release, on the grounds of abandonment.
"I know he doesn't like that word," she noted on the Oct. 13 episode, "because he doesn't feel like he abandoned me. I feel like he did."
In fact, she feels he basically ignored her until she made the decision to leave "so that he could say, 'My hands are clean.'"
And Kody didn't totally deny that he had a bit of a strategy.
"I had moved on a long time ago," he explained in a confessional. "But let's just be honest here, I was afraid of what she would do if I ripped off that Band-Aid. It's because Meri was never loyal to me, ever. That's what I've been worried about. It's just kind of reputation, because when you get divorced, your reputation is trashed."
Instead, alleged Meri, it was hers that was being tarnished.
"It's really just sad that Kody's talking about our marriage the way that he's talking about it," she said. "It feels like the narrative has changed with him, but the things that he's saying about me to other people and the people are believing are not true."
Christine Brown Woolley Realized Kody Brown Wasn't a Good Match Years Ago
Years before Christina left Kody, she realized they weren't a good match on paper, thanks to an exercise proposed by their Las Vegas-based marriage and family therapist.
Tasked with making a list of qualities she wanted in a husband, Christine wrote down that she was seeking a good communicator, someone who would be present in her and her children's lives and someone who was attracted to her, "And Kody wasn't any of the things on the list," she revealed on the Oct. 20 episode. "I told him the list and he's like, 'I'm not any of those things for you.’ I said, 'No, you're not.'"
The missive was part of the reason she knew so quickly that now-husband David Woolley was her person.
"Family is his most important thing to him," she gushed of the widowed dad of eight. "He's owned his own drywall business. He has a reputation of being honest and real with people and he's really a great communicator."
Christine Brown Woolley Told David Woolley She Loved Him a Week After They Met
Yes, Christine acknowledged, she and David took their courtship at a brisk pace, but they saw no reason to slow down.
Right out of the gate, she revealed on the Oct. 20 episode, they were exchanging I love yous. "It only took us a week," she confessed to her kids, noting David said those three little words first, with her following "right after."
By January 2023—mere weeks into dating—the pair were already hunting for wedding venues and discussing the guest list.
Janelle and her kids made the cut, as did Meri's child Leon. However, Christine shared in the Oct. 27 episode, "I am not ready to be around Meri and Robyn and Kody yet."
Kody Brown's Wives Were Worried When He Wed Robyn Brown
Though Meri, Janelle and Christine seemed to readily accept Robyn into their first, second and third wives' club, claddagh ring and all, they were reportedly a bit concerned when she and Kody made their union a legal one in 2014.
For Meri, divorcing Kody so he could marry Robyn and adopt her three oldest kids "was very hard emotionally," she shared on the Oct. 27 episode. Kody thought her struggle was "because I lost some sort of power," added Meri, noting, "that was really kind of weird and insulting because it had nothing to do with that."
The issue, she continued, was that she knew their decades-long marriage wasn't in the best spot already. "And so it was a very scary moment for me too, because I didn't know what was going to change," Meri explained. "I knew it was scary for some of my sister wives too, you know, I remember he had a conversation with Janelle and she was concerned about things changing and they did."
Christine Brown Woolley's Kids Were Worried She and David Woolley Moved Too Fast
When you know, you start hunting for wedding venues. Or such was the case when Christine and David decided mere weeks into their courtship that they were destined to get married.
"To get October in Moab, you have to get your wedding venue right away because it fills up because October is crazy in Moab," Christine explained during the Nov. 3 episode of fast-tracking the prep for their 2023 vows in Utah. "So yes, we are getting married. We have a wedding date, but we're not engaged yet."
The whirlwind of it all felt disorienting for some of her six kids.
"I am surprised by how fast things are going," Aspyn acknowledged. "My mom did just get out of a, what, 25-year relationship and then starts talking about getting married. It does seem really, really, really fast."
She wasn't the only one wondering if Christine should pump the brakes a bit.
"Paedon is having a hard time," Christine admitted of her son. "Ysabel's having a hard time with how fast we're moving. She likes David, but she just thinks it's moving really fast."
Kody Brown Tried to Get Back Together With Janelle Brown
When Janelle scheduled a sit-down with Kody to discuss her financial interest in their Arizona property, he instead asked, "What about you living on the property? What about you and me?"
But it was a hard pass from Janelle. "I think you're awesome," she told her estranged husband. "And whenever we talk, I still feel that like you've got this little hook in me or whatever. But I've been so happy that I don't foresee a long-term thing for us."
As she put it in a confessional, "We have had so many conversations where I've said 'It's done, we're done. We're not compatible.' And he's agreed. And he's like, 'Yeah, it's really sad.'" So, Janelle wondered, "Like, why are we talking about that?"
Turns out, as Kody shared in his own confessional, "I talk about reconciling with her because I'd like to be back in graces with my children, but I know that reconciling with her would require some kind of power game where I gave her all the power in the relationship, which I think is fair because I had it for so many years. But I'm not interested in that. I think it’s a fake discussion for both of us."
Janelle Brown Felt Robyn Brown Was Kody Brown's "Sacred Cow"
During the same chat about the Coyote Pass land, Janelle attempted to discuss a disagreement that arose when she tried to talk to Robyn about not buying her currently-on-the-market house in Arizona.
"We all agreed, she was amiable with me," Janelle recounted. "But apparently she went and told on me to Kody, and Kody's like, 'You were so mean to Robyn about blah, blah, blah.’ And I'm like, 'Well, I don't know how you know that.'"
Though Robyn insisted she "didn't tattle on Janelle," rather she wanted Kody to know they were in agreement about the house, Janelle took issue with the fact that they couldn't even discuss the situation.
"This happens every time the kids talk to him about Robyn or I talk to him," she explained on the Nov. 3 episode. "It's like he just doesn't want to go there. That's his sacred cow. She's perfect. Don't dare talk about her. And I'm like, well, dude, how do you expect to be in a plural marriage with me if you have this person that you worship? That's part of being a husband in a plural marriage. You have to be able to hear everybody equally."
Kody’s take, he shared in a confessional, "Janelle has a card. It says victim on it. She likes to play it."
Janelle Brown Alleges Kody Brown Made False Claims About the Family's Finances
In one of the more awkward conversations of the season, Janelle felt compelled to warn former sister wife Meri about what could happen if Kody didn't pay off their Coyote Pass land. “If we don't make it, he can repossess the whole thing,” she explained of the looming 75-day deadline. “We will lose it.”
But the most enlightening part of the conversation came when Janelle learned her ex had been leading his other wives to believe that she was in charge of the family's fiances.
"I am beginning to realize that Kody has been telling everybody that I somehow am controlling the money," Janelle explained in a confessional. "And trust me, if I really was, we would be in a very different position."
As in, they wouldn't be scrambling to pay off their acreage.
When Meri said she understood Kody hadn't handled that particular invoice because there were "a lot of other bills and stuff like that that needed to be covered," Janelle responded, "There would have been money if we prioritized it, I think."
Kody Brown Handled the Family Finances
As for who really held the family's purse strings, that would be Kody, claimed Christine.
"All of our money got put into a big, huge fund and we got paid out of that fund," she said on the Nov. 24 episode. "And I always talked to Kody about getting paid. He's the one who always wrote the check. If I needed anything, I told Kody. It was Kody who really had the control of the money."
And while the patriarch was in charge of any extra purchases, said Christine, "He could spend whatever the hell he wanted."
And he did, according to Janelle, who shared on the Jan. 26 episode that in the early days "we weighed in on what bills should be paid, how we were going to pay, who got priority. And then the last several years, Kody would just take out funds and I don't know what for. And the money was just being spent and lots of it."
She was the family bookkeeper, Janelle added, but not in control.
"I didn't do anything except for have to drink a glass of—whole freaking bottle of—wine when I sat and recorded the transactions," Janelle said, "and sent them to the to the accountant." Had she actually been in charge of funds, she added, they would have "paid off" their Arizona land and built on it.
Kody's take? "It's funny, my other wives remember Janelle controlling the money," he surmised. "I sort of guided where the money went. We all had access to the account. Listen, we were a family working together and we did the best we could."
Meri Brown Says She Stayed With Kody Brown for This Reason
Though Kody feels love isn't meant to be divided, his first wife Meri would have cut herself out of the equation years earlier if she hadn't received mixed messaging.
"There's just a lot of things that he says and does that have been really, really confusing to me over the years, which also is why I stayed with him for so long," she explained on the Nov. 17 episode. In the years before their late 2022 split, "Kody would talk to me almost like he needed to vent," she added. "I thought for a while with him talking to me and having those conversations and being open to me, that it was kind of maybe opening doors to, OK, we can have other conversations. We can, you know, start working on things."
When he finally confessed he was done with their romance, "Kody told me at one of our conversations, 'Meri, I decided this two years ago,'" she recounted. "I don’t think that was fair to me. You know, if he really was having these feelings that he really, really was done, it would have been cool if he would have just talked to me about it instead of the mixed messages that I kept getting."
Kody acknowledged that he "dragged it out a little bit long," at his fourth wife's behest. "Robyn was like, 'It's not right for you to break this off. She has to do this,'" he shared. "And I finally went, 'She's not going to do this and we're not safe together.'"
Meri Brown and Kody Brown Didn't Share a Bed for Nearly a Decade
Though they may have been officially together, Meri and Kody were rarely together in the last stretch of their marriage.
"We were not even like a dating couple," Kody lamented of their failure to connect. "We were like a completely estranged couple that were separated and on the brink of divorce. For eight years. Meri and I would travel together and we would hang out, but we were still not functioning as a married couple."
As in, "I don't think we slept in the same bed for eight years," he added. "I think we'd go to a hotel and sleep in different beds."
Kody Brown Thinks the Rest of the Family Is Jealous of Robyn Brown
Lamenting that he wasn't invited to daughter Savanah's high school graduation party, Kody said on the Dec. 1 episode that he felt Janelle and Christine were "in this collusion that seems to hate Robyn. And I don't know why other than, well, they're jealous."
He assumed he'd be able to RSVP yes to more family events if he didn't have a plus-one.
"The situation sucks," he griped. "I've got this whole other side of the family that have decided that they're still a family and we're out. Now, they'll let me in that club as long as I leave Robyn behind. I can’t do that."
Not that it would really move the needle.
"So Kody has this idea that somehow if he leaves Robyn home, he's going to be able to come to these family gatherings," Janelle noted in the same episode. "And that's so far from the truth. Kody is alienated from 90 to 95 percent of his children. He is not really wanted at events. He's not coming regardless of who he brings or doesn't bring with him."
Kody Brown Wasn't Interested in His Wives' Hobbies
While Meri gushed about her long-awaited trip to England to see Stonehenge, Kody was unmoved, barely aware of his first wife's desire to see the prehistoric megalithic structure.
But it wasn't just her hobbies that left him uninspired.
"I honestly have found Kody will forget things that are important to me that I've been talking about unless he's interested in it," explained Janelle, "or he can use it as somehow leverage to say, 'You need to do this and we can do this, you need to do this so we can go to Ireland.'"
Agreed Christine, "If you wanted to do things with Kody, you really have to live in his world and do things in his world and what he was interested in."
It's a flaw Kody acknowledged himself in a confessional.
"Oh gosh, I’m a guy," he explained during the Dec. 1 episode. "There are certain things I'm just going to remember and there are certain things that just aren't going to matter to me, even if they do matter to you. Sometimes it's just selective memory."
Kody Brown Thought About Screwing Over Janelle Brown
Turns out Janelle was pretty wise to lawyer up while working on the details of the family's shared Arizona property.
"She doesn't trust me because she would screw me if she could," he said of his second wife's wariness. "That's what I believe. OK, And I'll be honest, I've thought about screwing her. OK, so I'm being honest, but I won't. My wife with a conscience won't let me."
But while Robyn supposedly put a stop to any nefarious plans, Kody was still hesitant to get the property appraised, noting he didn't want to sink more money and time into the asset.
Janelle had another theory, though, saying on the Dec. 1 episode, she thought his caginess was "because he knows he's making out like a bandit.
Kody Brown Didn't do Anything for His Wedding to Christine Brown Woolley
Christine said "I do" to every fun detail of planning her October 2023 vows to David because she never got to do the bride thing with Kody.
"We didn't have a cake," she confessed during the Dec. 8 episode. "We just had a very simple dinner. But I didn't really involve Kody that much with the planning. He just said do whatever you want to do. So I just felt like as a plural wife, we should just have something simple, just a dinner."
Not only was Kody unaware of the key details ("She had a dress that was, I guess, satin" he recalled), he did little more than show up.
"I had a hard time getting work off for my own wedding," he admitted of walking down the aisle for the third time, "because I couldn't tell my boss that I was getting married again. I had a wife, actually I had two."
Kody Brown Doesn't Think Any of His Kids Will Live Polygamy
Having watched their dad multiply, and then divide, his love, "I don't think any of my kids are going to live a plural marriage," Kody confessed. "I could possibly see it if one of my daughter's wanted to marry a married man. I don't think the experience they've had with our family would make them want to do that. So I really wouldn't care to have my daughters in plural marriage. I really don't think any of my sons are interested in plural marriage either."
The Family's Church Leaders Weren't Thrilled About the Show
Not everyone agreed with Kody's premise that the world just had to meet his family. "Our church leaders were mad when we went public," Christine admitted on the Dec. 15 episode. "They didn't get it. Family didn't get it, friends didn't get it. No one got it."
Their motivation, she continued, was that they were simply sick of hiding their plural marriage lifestyle. They were done "having other people think the worst of us just because we're a polygamist family," said Christine. "They think all these things about us that aren't true. We thought everybody would be on board. Yeah, they weren't."
In fact, some people predicted this would be "the demise of your family," noted Meri, "which is kind of funny. Like, it's not funny at all, actually."
Meri Brown Says Her Relationship With Robyn Brown Wasn't Reciprocal
To hear Meri tell it, she tried to have a close relationship with Robyn. But as the COVID pandemic created distance between the family, "I was the one who was always calling," she recounted. "It wasn't being reciprocated. And I I really believe that a relationship has to be reciprocal."
The most hurtful part, she shared, was Robyn choosing not to attend the 2021 funeral of Meri's mom Bonnie.
But as Robyn explained, "Kody went because we couldn't both quarantine away from the kids for that long. I didn’t have that option. During this time, I was missing all kinds of things." Had it not taken place mid-pandemic, Robyn added, "I would have been there in a heartbeat."
Christine Brown Woolley Thinks Robyn Brown Orchestrated Meri Brown and Kody Brown's Legal Divorce
According to Christine, Robyn didn't just want the man, she wanted the legally cemented family.
When Kody wed Robyn—already a mom to Dayton, Aurora and Breanna from her first marriage to David Preston Jessop—"she started talking to us about these other families where the first wife divorced the husband so he could marry the second wife legally and legally adopt the kids," Christine alleged on the TLC series' Dec. 29 episode. "And I remember thinking, yeah, that's a plant."
Because Robyn "mentioned that several times through the years," Christine continued, "like she was putting that in there because she would have loved that to happen."
Though Christine acknowledged Meri would say that the decision to end their legal union in 2014—which paved the way for Kody to adopt Robyn's three eldest kids—was all hers.
"I don't think Meri felt like it was planted," said Christine. "I think Meri felt like it was her own idea."
To hear Robyn tell it, though, the only-on-paper move was fully Meri's brainchild.
"The idea that I, like, planted an idea in Meri’s head is an absolute lie," she insisted. "I never said it. I don't even know anyone who divorced their first wife so that the second wife could adopt kids. I've never even heard of that before. Meri told me when she made the offer that when we were getting to know each other, she had had the idea in her head to offer to give me the legal marriage so that Kody could adopt my kids."
Kody Brown Once Threatened to Be "Horrible" to Meri Brown for 20 Years
What's the opposite of sweet nothings? Because that's what Kody told first wife Meri shortly after the family moved to Las Vegas in 2011. As she revealed in the series' Jan. 5 episode, "When we were living in the rentals is when he said this to me: 'Listen, you've been hard to live with. You've been mean. And so now I am going to be this way to you and you're just going to have to deal with it for 20 years.'"
Kody claimed the words didn't come from a fit of anger, rather, "I was saying it because I was mad enough to tell the truth." Either way, as Meri cracked to a pal, referencing their 2022 split, "Joke's on him. I didn't last that long."