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Sister Wives star Janelle Brown revealed when Meri Brown started to distance herself from the rest of their polygamous family.
While appearing on the Monday, November 4, episode of the “Reality Life with Kate Casey” podcast, Kate asked Janelle, 55, when Meri, 53, started to become less involved in the lives of Kody Brown and his other wives.
“I mean, she and Robyn [Brown] were always pretty close,” Janelle said, referencing Meri’s relationship with Kody’s fourth wife.
However, she added that things changed when Kody, 55, and Meri’s only child, Leon Brown, moved out of their home. “I do think when Leon left the house and she was an empty nester before we were, she started to develop a lot more interest outside of the family,” she said. “Because yeah, she had time.”
“But I know she and Robyn were always pretty close to a lot of things,” Janelle continued about Meri’s dynamic with their family after Leon, 29, moved out on their own. “So I don’t know if she was separate. I mean, she and Kody had been estranged for many, many years.”
Christine Brown was Kody’s first wife to end their spiritual marriage in November 2021, followed by his split from Janelle in December 2022. Meri and Kody confirmed their own spiritual divorce in January 2023, leaving Robyn, 45, as the patriarch’s last remaining wife.
“After more than a decade of working on our relationship in our own unique ways, we have made the decision to permanently terminate our marriage relationship,” Meri and Kody wrote in their joint statement at the time, adding that they were “committed to kindness and respect toward each other and to all the members of our family.”
The duo added, “We are also committed to the continued healing of any and all relationships within the family so that we can move forward with forgiveness, grace and love.”
Janelle opened up about Meri’s dynamic with the rest of their family after Kody reflected on how his relationship with his first wife has changed following their split.
“It’s interesting to me that Meri and I are safe enough with each other right now to joke around,” he said in a confessional during the November 3 episode of the TLC show. “The burden has been lifted, somehow or another, or at least in this moment.”
Footage followed that showed the former couple joking around, and Kody pointed out that their relationship is “now easier than it was three months ago or six years ago.”
“It’s weird,” he continued about his current dynamic with Meri. “I have no idea.”
Earlier in the season, fans watched Meri ask the church to be released from her marriage to Kody during the October 13 episode. “It’s been an interesting year,” she explained. “I really, really felt like that he was just doing everything he could to have me be the one to leave so that he could say, ‘My hands are clean. She’s the one who left.’”
“[It’s] basically the equivalent of a divorce,” the mother of one explained about the “release” process, adding that it was “very hard” to have a conversation about the idea with Kody. “This is not what I wanted to do. This is not what I intended when I married Kody.”
English (US) ·