Sister Wives' Kody Brown Claims Ex Meri Brown Was "Never Loyal to Me Ever" in Marriage

Kody Brown has a different outlook on the end to his spiritual marriage to Meri Brown. 

During the Oct. 13 episode of Sister Wives, Meri reached out to the former couple’s church to request a release from her marriage to Kody, which began in 1990 when the couple legally tied the knot and continued after their 2014 legal divorce.

At the time, Meri divorced Kody so he could legally marry his fourth wife Robyn Brown in order to adopt her three children from a previous marriage. However, Kody’s first wife maintained that she still viewed herself as married to Kody despite their years of estrangement.

“I got a phone call from the church leader who said we've given Meri a release,” Kody shared during the episode. “And they said a few other things that I don't want to necessarily disclose that sort of upset me.”

Meri then revealed what those “upsetting” statements were.

“They did say that it was on the grounds of abandonment,” Meri said. “And I know he doesn't like that word because he doesn't feel like he abandoned me. I feel like he did.”

However, Kody explained why he opted to stay in his marriage to Meri despite their lengthy estrangement, noting it was based in Robyn’s desire for the former couple to stay together.

“Robyn felt that if I waited on God that things could change for mine and Meri's relationship,” Kody claimed. “And that was advice that I took and I waited. And as time went on, I realized that it was never really going to work. And I'm sorry to Meri for that. I wish I would have figured it out sooner.”

The father of 18 also claimed that he stayed in the marriage out of fear.

“Oh, I'm absolutely relieved that it's done. It's sad. It's heartbreaking, but I'm relieved that it's done,” Kody said of his first marriage. “I had moved on a long time ago. 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.”

In 2015, Meri was the victim of a catfishing scandal, in which it was discovered she was talking online to a woman whom she thought was a man—and that person ended up releasing their messages amidst her marriage to Kody. In the fallout that ensued, Kody and Meri ended up choosing to no longer live together despite remaining married for nearly another decade.

“It's really just sad that Kody's talking about our marriage the way that he's talking about it,” Meri said in her confessional. “It feels like the narrative has changed with him, but the things that he's saying about me to other people and that people are believing are not true.”

New episodes of Sister Wives air Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.

For more of this season’s biggest bombshells, read on.

Kody Brown insisted he was ready to divide himself from first wife Meri Brown shortly after their 1990 vows. But "he led me to believe that he would work on things by saying, 'Oh Meri, when we move to Flagstaff, this will be a good time to have a new beginning for us,'" Meri shared in the Sept. 15 premiere, referencing their 2018 move. "Like he led me to believe those things. This is what he's done for many, many years."

Her main gripe, she shared, is "his lack of communication and how he really felt and what he really wanted or what he really didn't want and the story that he's been telling for all these years."

And while Kody acknowledged that there may have been "mixed messages," it was only because as he started to work on things, "I'm like, 'Why would I do this?'" he explained. "I would not court and date her now."

Either way, Meri's friends were thrilled when she finally pulled the plug in early 2023. 

"They’re like, 'OK, we're here for you, we’re supporting you. And it’s about damn time,'" she confessed. Blinders off, she now feels that he had been trying to get her to walk away for years by insisting he didn’t love her, "Because if he can push me out and I leave, he's not the bad guy because he didn't walk away."

Years after the family purchased the 14-acre plot of land they planned to build on in Flagstaff, Ariz., Kody confessed in the season premiere that he was ready to let the dream wither. Unable to build without paying off the full $820,000 price tag (which the family reportedly did in 2023), he told remaining wife Robyn Brown, "I’d almost rather scrap it or sell it and then just start again somewhere else."

As for Robyn, "I can’t talk about that," she responded. "That is so not where I’m at."

While second wife Janelle Brown previously told E! News, “We just kind of started to grow apart,” ultimately it was Kody’s lapses as a parent to some of their kids that pushed her to leave.

"The big spark for me was when his relationship broke down with my children and he didn't seem like he would move heaven and earth to fix it," explained the mom to Logan Brown, Madison Brown Brush, Hunter Brown, Garrison Brown, Gabriel Brown and Savanah Brown. "And I thought, OK, that was what was really holding me here."

That was the explanation Kody gave for not working harder to mend the rifts he was experiencing with several of his adult children.

"I don’t fit in the family anymore," he griped in the Sept. 15 episode. Noting he was still fully married to Robyn and parenting their five kids together—Dayton Brown, Aurora Brown, Breanna Brown, Solomon Brown and Ariella Brown—he added, "and then I have some relationship with some of the other kids and it's infrequent. And so I'm like, what do I do with all of this? It doesn’t feel like a family."

Despite being truly monogamous for the first time in their 14-year union, "We’re probably doing the worst we’ve ever done in our marriage," Robyn confessed in the season 19 premiere. "It’s been tough between us. He doesn’t know who to blame, himself or one of the other wives. Kody’s feeling a lot of rejection and so I think he’s kind of looking at me going, 'Are you going to reject me too?'"

As a result, she revealed, "I’m on my toes. I’m having to consistently make sure that he is not sabotaging our relationship." The hardest part, she summed up: "There’s no resource to help with the idea that I’m still married to a man who’s going through divorces."

Kody, meanwhile, was having a crisis of confidence, sharing, "I can’t look myself in the mirror and say, 'Hey, dude. I love you.'"

Add Janelle’s eldest daughter Madison to the list of kids Kody doesn’t currently have a relationship with. "I know that Maddie has not had any conversations with her dad," Janelle explained during the premiere. "He's not called, she's not called him, and she doesn't have any relationship with Robin. She's pretty much written them both off."

At issue, said Janelle, is Kody having a half-hearted relationship with Maddie’s kids Axel, Evangalynn and Josephine: "She doesn't really want him to have any contact unless he can commit to it."

As a result, Janelle shared in the Sept. 22 episode,  Kody "did sort of cut off communication” with Maddie and her husband Caleb Brush (whose sister was married to Kody’s brother) "when the family started to really dissolve.”

With Kody not visiting or calling, Maddie "has been Mama Bear to the extreme," added Janelle. "She has felt like until he can be consistent and show up and not be dramatic that she feels like it's probably better if they don't know about him."

And while Robyn noted she’s been encouraging Kody to reach out and mend things, she said, "I think the kids should be doing the same thing, too."

For now, though, Kody doesn’t seem ready to repair the rift, griping that every time he spoke to his daughter, "It was a fish for gossip and I got tired of it."

While spending time together on their 32nd anniversary, "He was alluding to the fact that he never loved me and he felt like he had to marry me," Meri shared in a chat with her friend Brandi during the Sept. 15 premiere. “And I said to him, I said, 'Kody,' I said, 'I know you loved me.'"

And if he didn't, the mom to Leon Brown said in a confessional, why did he ever choose to propose? 

"When a single young man meets a single young woman, why would he choose to marry her and just affirm and force love for her when he didn't love her?" she wondered. "How cruel is that? To pick me out of a crowd and just be like, 'I pick you to try to force myself to love for the next 32 years'?"

Kody's response, he shared in his own confessional: "Oh, Meri has her little accusations now. Fine, she can say whatever she wants. I'm not going to comment on it." 

Though she was undecided on if she’d like to build on Coyote Pass or simply sell it off, Janelle noted that step one was paying off the Arizona property. And with Kody unwilling to talk to her about the situation, "I think I'm going to have to lawyer up," she confessed to former sister wife Christine Brown in the Sept. 22 episode. "Because I think that's the only way I'm ever going to get any kind of decision out of him."

And Janelle acknowledged that without a legal marriage to Kody, "I really have no legal rights to make any kind of claim on Kody’s property." As she put it, "It's not like I'm just calling a lawyer and saying I need to divorce this person. No, it's really complicated because there's no legal marriage."

Kody's explanation for not talking with Janelle about their Arizona property is that he no longer trusted her. 

"We will pay off the property when the time comes," he insisted in a confessional during the Sept. 22 episode, "and I'm not giving you any details about what I'm doing or whatever because I'm tired of disclosing information that goes through the gossip mill of our broken family."

A bit of a pot calling the kettle black, Janelle said in her own interview. 

"He leaks like a sieve," she shared. "He told me stuff about his other relationships and his other wives that I was like, 'I don't think you're supposed to be telling me that.'"

Back when the family's love was still multiplying rather than dividing, they used to pool their money into one pot. 

"We would use all the resources to help one person, then we would all rally to support the other person," Janelle explained on the Sept. 22 episode. "That's how it always worked until the last 10 years or so. And all of a sudden it’s been about my estate and everyone needs their own estate." 

So when Robyn was in need of a home in Arizona, they all pitched in to buy her $1.65 million five-bedroom spread—which was listed for sale this past August. 

The intention was that it would be an asset for the family, said Robyn. But when Janelle suggested that they all put their names on the mortage, she was rebuffed. Kody was "like, 'No, no, we need to protect, you know, protect Robyn’s estate,'" Janelle recalled. So now that she's extricating herself from the family, continued Janelle, she'd like her portion of the Coyote Pass proceeds "and I'd like to recoup some of the money I put into Robyn’s house."

But that could be a tough sell. 

"We were working together for so long," noted Robyn. And with Janelle saying she's owed money from them, Robyn added, "It's like, how do you calculate? How do you figure that out? It’s so confusing."

Griping about the family’s inability to pay off Coyote Pass, Janelle said Kody claimed to have "all these other debts." And, yet, she’s watched him snap up other assets like trailers and home décor. "I see all the art on their walls," she said of Robyn and Kody's home. "I see all these things. And that’s fine, I have money and I’ve spent it on things, too." (For his part Kody said much of his cash went to buying cars—"Basically had a fleet"—and insurance for the kids.)

And while Janelle acknowledged she wasn’t sure how Kody and Robyn handled their finances, "I used to always be surprised at how nice her backyard was. It was completely finished. And there was always, like, stuff at her house. And I was like, 'Wow. Huh.'"

Bottom line, she said, "He doesn't prioritize what I need or what I want." And that issue eventually wore her down. "I think after a while, I began to see it, and my kids were getting very angry about it, like my adult children. Like, 'What the hell, Mom?'"

Robyn's take, however, was that she was very careful with her budget after her first marriage fell apart. 

“I used to be not so great with money," she shared during the Sept. 22 episode. "When I was young, I had hard knocks, and then I learned during my divorce really how to budget myself very, very well." As for her fellow sister wives, she said, "You just must have had a different priority of where your money was going to go than I did, that's all."

At the moment, Janelle acknowledged in the Sept. 22 episode, while she and Christine—mom to Aspyn Brown, Mykelti Brown Padron, Paedon Brown, Gwendlyn Brown, Ysabel Brown and Truely Brown—get together with their broods, "There’s no contact, really, with Meri or Robyn or Kody. I don’t really foresee that’s going to change much."

Calling their set-up with four homes on one cul-de-sac during their stretch in Las Vegas "the best time of my life," Kody said, "Everything was going along smoothly and Maddie and Caleb were around and it was great having them around. And I loved Caleb. He was definitely like family."

But "things started to fall apart" in Arizona as they clashed over coronavirus-related precautions. Then when his marriages fell apart, he said, his bonds with the kids followed: "It just made all those relationships go sour."

But Christine insisted their were issues well before she announced she was leaving in late 2021. 

"All the kids that were frustrated were frustrated way before I left," she said on the Sept. 22 episode. "My leaving didn't change his kids' relationship with him. Kody can still fix his relationships with his children."

Though it'll definitely take some work. 

"I'm so angry about how I've been treated that I haven't gotten past that," Kody explained. "Here's the thing is I'm not willing to take blame for things that my wife or ex-wife is sitting there telling them that I did. I hope the time comes when the contempt will subside. We'll be able to find forgiveness and love again."

Kody revealed he and Meri didn’t know each other all that well when they wed both spiritually and legally at the age of 21 and 19, respectively. (They eventually filed for divorce in 2014 so Kody could legally adopt Robyn’s three eldest children from her first marriage.)

"When we got married, she was very different and I think just there's some baggage that Meri had that I didn't know about,” Kody explained. "Initially, I felt like I could live with it." Claiming that everything was a fight, he said, "I can’t live in a world where she is constantly angry at me."

Yet, he was unable to leave. A man, in plural marriage, said Kody, "If he wants to stay faithful and in the faith, he cannot request a divorce. It’s not allowed. So I was not able to get out of that relationship. At the same time, I didn't necessarily want out of the relationship. I wanted to know if we could save and fix it."

Hence the mixed messages, he acknowledged of Meri thinking they would work everything out. But, every time they were together, continued Kody, "She wasn't nice, she wasn't fun, she wasn't kind, she wasn't interesting. I'm trying to be curious with her and I'm bored."

To be fair, he added, he could see why Meri felt abandoned, "But I didn’t kick me out. Christine, Janelle and Meri all chose to have me leave the home."

Though Janelle and Christine felt they didn’t need to divorce Kody because their marriage was never legal, Meri planned to ask their church for an official separation, called a release.

"When each of us four ladies married Kody, it was through our church," she explained in the Sept. 22 episode. "Obviously we can't all be legally married, but it was what we called a covenant. So I feel like it's best to terminate that because we're not moving forward with any marriage and I don't want to be, like, sealed to him for eternity if he doesn't want me. And I’m at a place that, like, let’s just separate this completely."

Kody was resistant to the idea, she added, not wanting to "acknowledge the authority" of the church leaders.

"The damage was done so badly that we're not going to reconcile no matter what," Kody explained of his stance. "And so however, we are made accountable to God, I don't want to be accountable to this church and all their BS. So I'm going to let Meri go and do her thing because if I'm angry at her it, it becomes a fight. And I needed her just to go away because it just took forever for her to finally realize it's been done and over for years."

A text message discussion over a 2021 holiday gift exchange turned particularly ugly for the 18 Brown offspring. "It all went bad, it all went south," detailed Christine. "Kody and Robyn and their kids were on one side and they wanted nothing to do with Janelle, me, our kids. And there was a split that happened after this text thread."

Robyn’s take was that her three older kids felt the exchange was "emotionally unsafe" and said they needed to take a step back from the relationship. "But it was never anything about, 'We don't want to see you again, we don’t want anything to do with you,'" she insisted. "It was just about, like, 'Hey this got yucky.'"

"I have been told directly, multiple circumstances by multiple different people, that I was not accepted," Aurora insisted of coming into the family when her mom wed Kody in 2010, "that I was not their sister, that they didn't consider or see me that way."

And her sister Breanna said she felt the parents "could have done a better job with, you know, connecting us as a family and it never really happened."

But Christine isn’t sure how they could have opened their arms any wider.

"Robyn’s kids and Robyn were invited to everything," she insisted. "I would just say, 'Just come in, come into the house anytime you want.'"

Meanwhile, she added, her daughter Ysabel Brown was very close to Robyn’s kids and Mykelti Brown Padron even lived with them for a stretch: "There were hard times and my kids were frustrated, but they always considered Robyn's kids their siblings just the same."

Gushing about the independence she was afforded, Janelle said of plural marriage, "When it’s functioning correctly, you have this amazing family unit that you’re part of, a community that you’re plugged into. You have a husband and you have a great relationship with him and and you have everything, right. And then I have all my independence. So to me, plural marriage really was a really great arrangement."

To hear Janelle tell it, Kody had a tougher time dividing his love after the family decamped from Las Vegas to Arizona in 2018. 

"When he moved to Flagstaff, Kody found it a lot easier to be away," she noted on the Sept. 29 episode. "A couple of times I had to remind him that he needed to come to my house." Revealing he'd try to beg off because he was tired, she shared, "I'm really tired. I'm like, 'Well, you can rest at my house just as much as you can rest at Robyn’s house.'"

Detailing the "separateness" her brood felt with Robyn, Janelle claimed, "My children were scolded if they would open up Robyn's fridge." For Christine's kids, though, the issue was that "they saw that Robyn and their dad were a couple and he wasn't in our home." 

And Robyn said her crew definitely felt the divide. 

"Meri, across the board, was very accepting of my kids and I, but the rest of the family really struggled to accept my kids and I," she shared on the Sept. 29 episode. "All we wanted to do was be a part of this family." 

Having their dad shuffle between four different homes did have an affect on Kody's 18 kids, he detailed during the Sept. 29 episode, sharing the time that his and Robyn's youngest, Ariella, who was born in January 2016, clung to his leg as he was trying to leave. 

"I had to explain to her, 'There’s another wife that needs me, another mommy. I got other kids that need to see me,'" Kody described. "And she’s just dragging along on my legs screaming, 'Don't leave me, Daddy, don't leave me.' And I’m like, 'Golly, man, this is hard.'"

Unfortunately, that's just a reality of plural marriage, insisted Janelle. 

"From the very beginning," she explained, her kids "knew that their dad was not going to always be there. I always felt like that Kody and Robyn mismanaged the situation with her children. He couldn't be away for more than three or four days because Ari just gets so sad or whatever. I'm like, I feel like that was poor parenting. Through all history of the family the other kids did it and they’re fine. They’re well-adjusted adults."

One of the few Brown kids who was still close to both Robyn and Kody and Christine and Janelle, mom of three Mykelti took on the role of peacekeeper during Kody's divorces. 

Tight with Robyn from the moment she entered the Brown family, Mykelti even invited her to be at the November 2022 birth of her twins Archer and Ace. 

"When Robyn first joined the family, I was trying to figure out who I was, and she made me feel special and she made me feel seen," Mykelti explained during the Sept. 29 episode. "Robyn was there for me when I needed somebody. She was there for me when I needed somebody to hear me, to love me."

And her mom Christine couldn't have been more thrilled. "When Robyn came in the family and it was obvious her and Mykelti had a great relationship, it was everything that I hoped for," Christine shared no the Oct. 6 episode. "When I was so excited about having a plural family, I was hoping that my kids would have a great relationship with other moms. "

Kody feels it's not only his wives who subtracted him from their lives. "They're purposefully leaving me out of their lives to punish me for a crime I did not commit," he explained during the Oct. 6 epsiodes, giving his take on his estrangement from some of his older kids. "I am only guilty of not falling madly in love with their mothers."

What's more, he continued, he think his former spouses are a bit to blame. 

"This disparity in relationship with my children is specifically in my mind because of s--t talk," he said. "There's this whirlwind of disappointment from the family breaking up or whatever, and it's like, 'Well, blame Dad. Dad screwed up.'"

But while he can shoulder a bit of that blame, he takes umbrance with the name-calling. Revealing, specifically, that he was struggling to connect with Hunter, Maddie and Gabriel, Kody shared that one of his kids responded to a text "saying, 'You are a piece of trash. I would never speak to you again anyway.'"

In a separate incident, he told cameras, "I've had one of my kids just say, 'You’re an a--hole. I’m never talking to you again. You manipulated me and you brainwashed me.'"

And it's that venom he's not willing to deal with. "I’m not going to reach out forever," he said, noting he thinks his adults should be doing more to fix things. "I'm willing to make the effort, but somebody else is going to have to be on the other end of that and make some effort too."

For Robyn, watching Kody's estrangement from his adult children hit far too close to home. 

"When I was little, my parents got a divorce," she explained during the Oct. 6 episode. "He lived with one wife in another city, and then my mom lived alone. I remember confronting my biological father saying, 'What happened? Why?' All he really did was just make a bunch of lame excuses as to why he wasn't there for me when I was young and it just sucked." 

So, no, she wasn't about to allow Kody's hurt feelings stop him from making an effort. "I’m having a hard time not, like, feeling like losing respect for you a little bit," she shared during their explosive on-camera argument, which took place in late 2022. 

And though Kody acknowledged he could be doing more to mend his relationship with his kids, he said he needs to mend his heart first. 

Saying he feels some of his kids are "colluding against me," he revealed, "I'm so angry about what has happened that if I talk to my kids, I'm worried that they'll trigger me with an accusation. I’m too hot-headed right now. All I’ll do is more damage."

Though much of the family attended a wedding together in late 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."