After almost 30 years of marriage, Janelle Brown and Kody Brown ended their spiritual union during Sister Wives season 18, and it was a contentious divorce. Janelle was Kody’s second wife, and they share six children together. They got married two years after Kody married his first wife, Meri Brown. Less than a year after marrying Janelle, Kody married his third wife, Christine Brown.
It would be another 16 years before Kody would bring a new wife into the family, marrying Robyn Brown in 2010. With a total of four wives and 18 children, there were several big, chaotic households to manage. It eventually proved to be too much, and in December 2022, Janelle and Kody announced they had been separated for several months. The separation wasn’t much of a shock, considering some of the terrible things Kody has said to Janelle over the years.
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8 Kody Said Janelle Was “Lazy”
Janelle Can’t Win
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kody and Robyn were more cautious than the rest of the plural family. This created a lot of tension between Kody and Janelle’s children, specifically Gabriel Brown and Garrison Brown, who didn’t want to follow their father’s strict pandemic rules. This conflict led to a lot of separation in the family and put Janelle in a terrible position of having to choose between Kody and her children. When she chose to stand by her kids, Kody accused Janelle of being lazy when it came to COVID-19 prevention. Nothing Janelle would do was good enough for Kody, and she eventually couldn’t take it anymore.
7 “Janelle Is Full Of S**t”
Kody Wants Obedience
During the COVID-19 quarantine, Janelle and Christine were concerned their kids wouldn’t see their family, so they decided to make it possible for them to see each other. They made plans to spend the holidays together, which enraged Kody, as this would be the first time the family was separated during the holidays. When the subject came up during a confessional, Kody told the cameras that he thought Janelle was “full of s**t.” Janelle often told Kody she was trying to bridge the gap between him and his sons, but he didn’t believe her. He instead accused her of coming between him and his children by not obeying Kody’s COVID-19 rules.
6 “YOU Don’t Listen”
Kody And Janelle’s Big Fight
During Sister Wives season 18, episode 3, things got heated between Kody and Janelle. The normally calm couple were left screaming at each other in Janelle’s new apartment rental. The subject of their fight was, again, Kody’s strict pandemic rules and Janelle’s children’s refusal to abide by them. Though Kody is often emotional, Janelle has always been the calmest in the family. However, this conversation got so heated that even Janelle lost her cool. It ended with Kody accusing Janelle of not listening to him before storming out. This accusation was especially frustrating because he had spent the entire conversation interrupting her.
5 “I Don’t Have Sons. They’re All Dead To Me.”
Their Family Feud
Kody spent most of Sister Wives season 18 livid about his COVID-19 rules not being respected by Janelle’s sons. After a particularly bad argument during the pandemic, Kody said, “I don’t have sons. They’re all dead to me.” The feud with his sons may have been triggered by the pandemic but had been building up for years. Since the family left Utah and moved into multiple separate homes, Kody has spent less and less time with his children, especially his older kids. The pandemic shone a bright light on this long-running problem.
4 Kody Accused Janelle Of “Lying” And “Cheating” Him
Unfair Accusations
Kody and Janelle’s recurring argument about parenting their kids comes to a head during Sister Wives season 18. After Janelle informed Kody that she and her kids would be spending the holidays with Christine and her kids, Kody lost his cool. Janelle and Christine had always been close, but since Christine left, Kody expected Janelle to stay loyal to him. He accused Janelle of lying and cheating him out of time he should be spending with his family. This was an unfair accusation, considering the matter was entirely in Kody’s hands, not Janelle’s.
3 Kody Says Janelle “Undermines” His Authority
Kody Wants Control
While talking about his estrangement with his sons, Gabe and Garrison, Kody implies that Janelle undermines his ability to lead the family and be the man of the household. “I could be a great leader in the family and I should be, in spite of their undermining, but I don’t have the exposure to the children that the mothers have in this family. So having the mothers support me would be the thing to do,” he said. The bottom line is that Kody was selfishly angry at Janelle for putting her children’s needs before his.
2 Janelle Is “Too Independent” For Kody
Patriarchy Strikes Again
Over the years, Kody would often lament that, in a plural marriage, each wife becomes the head of her own household. With a husband only around every few days, wives naturally grow more independent and get used to making decisions for themselves and their biological children. Kody grew to resent Janelle for making unilateral decisions without consulting him. For her part, Christine quipped that she didn’t sign up for patriarchy when she married Kody. She enjoyed the independence that her plural marriage allowed her and had no intention of giving it up.
1 Kody’s Thoughts On “Demonic” PMS
Reducing Women To Their Biology
The worst thing Kody ever said during Sister Wives was about his wive’s menstrual cycles. He once blamed a particularly heated fight he had with one of his wives on the fact that she was experiencing PMS. Instead of dealing with the actual problem, he reduced it to his caveman ideas about a woman’s period. At one point, Kody even told a fellow polygamist husband that his wives are “demonic” when they’re on their periods and that their monthly cycles make him feel “abused.” Janelle never appreciated Kody’s comments about her menstrual cycle and once told Kody she gets “frustrated” when she’s “reduced to her biology.”
Sister Wives
Sister Wives is a TV series created for TLC that follows Cody Brown and his four wives as they raise their eighteen children and tackle the challenges associated with their massive family dynamic and the stigma that comes with their way of life.
