Sister Wives’ Janelle Brown awkwardly confronted Meri Brown about protecting her finances from their mutual ex Kody Brown and his wife Robyn Brown on the Nov. 10 episode.
Things got uncomfortable to say the least when Kody Brown’s exes Janelle Brown and Meri Brown came face-to-face on the Nov. 10 episode of Sister Wives.
Amid her ongoing drama with Kody—and his only remaining wife Robyn Brown—over the family’s Coyote Pass property, Janelle felt it was her duty to inform Meri about the financial implications of Kody’s refusal to pay off the property.
“If we don’t make it, he can repossess the whole thing,” Janelle, who split from Kody in 2022 after 30 years of spiritual marriage, warned Meri of the 75-day deadline. “We will lose it.”
And though Meri, who ended her own estranged relationship with Kody that same year, assured Janelle, “I’m not worried about that,” it prompted Janelle to come to a new realization. Specifically, in the way she sees herself as being perceived in the estranged blended family.
“I am beginning to realize that Kody has been telling everybody that I am somehow controlling the [family’s] money,” Janelle said in her confessional. “And trust me, if I really was, we would be in a very different position.”
In fact, Meri even seemed to confirm Janelle’s suspicion. “I’ve have been under the impression for many, many years,” she told Janelle, “that you’re the one who’s been taking care of all the family finances.”
Janelle then said that Kody—who also split from ex Christine Brown in 2021—has been “putting me off” for years when it comes to paying off Coyote Pass, claiming he “doesn’t have the money.”
TLCAnd she doesn’t think that was necessarily the case. “Well, there was always money,” Janelle told Meri, “if we prioritized it.”
However, though Janelle is concerned about Meri’s financial interests, Meri doesn’t seem to be worried about Kody and Robyn’s trustworthiness.
TLC“I don’t think that there’s really any need for protection,” Meri told Janelle. “Don’t you think that we have each other’s backs as far as that goes?”
But Janelle disagreed, saying, “No, I really don’t.”
And though Janelle emphasized she’d have Meri’s back, Kody’s first wife doesn’t think she’s in any danger when it comes to her ex and Robyn. Indeed, she’d rather just stay out of the rising drama altogether.
“I feel like everybody in the family has a different opinion about the other person, about what has been happening with the finances,” Meri said in her confessional interview. “And I don’t know which of it is true. I’m not going to take sides. I’m not going to be in the ex wives club. I’m not in the Kody and Robyn club.”
The “very awkward” conversation doesn’t end with any resolution for Janelle as she tells Meri, “I feel like I better protect myself,” to which Meri simply laments, “Sorry that you feel like that.”
For more bombshells from the current season of Sister Wives, read on.
Ida Mae Astute/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty ImagesMeri Says Kody Gave Her Hope for Their Marriage
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.”
TLCKody Wanted to Sell Coyote Pass
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.”
Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/FilmMagicJanelle Left Kody for This Reason
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.”
Even when Kody broached the idea of reconciling in the Nov. 3 episode, it was a non-negotiable for Janelle.
“I don’t know how I would ever reconcile with him and have him not have a relationship with my kids,” she said. “No, I’m going to always choose my kids.”
Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesKody Feels He’s Been “Excommunicated” from His Own Family
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.”
Instagram/TLCRobyn and Kody’s Marriage Was on Shaky Ground
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.'”
For Robyn, it was a struggle to watch her former sister wives embrace their new era. “They’re all moving on,” she noted in the Oct. 27 episode. “I feel like the idiot that got left behind.”
