The long-simmering tensions within the Brown family have finally reached a boiling point, as the latest Sister Wives "One-on-One" specials peel back the layers of a decade’s worth of resentment, financial disputes, and allegations of double-crossing. At the heart of the current storm is Meri Brown, Kody Brown’s first wife, who has come forward with startling claims regarding the infamous catfishing scandal that rocked the family in 2015. More than ten years after the incident, Meri is pointing the finger at Robyn Brown, suggesting that her former sister wife played a much more active—and potentially damaging—role in the drama than previously understood.
The catfishing saga began when Meri, feeling isolated in her marriage, struck up an online relationship with a person she believed to be a man named "Sam." It was later revealed that "Sam" was actually a female orchestrator of an elaborate hoax. While the family initially presented a united front, Meri now admits she felt something was "fishy" regarding Robyn’s involvement at the time. According to Meri, every time she shared private details about the situation with Robyn in confidence, the catfisher seemed to gain immediate access to that information. Meri’s suspicion is that Robyn was relaying these private conversations to a mutual friend who was in direct contact with the person harassing Meri.
While Meri stopped short of saying Robyn intended to cause harm, she noted that the constant "sharing of information" only served to exacerbate an already volatile situation. "There was a huge lack of trust there," Meri admitted, reflecting on the 32-year marriage to Kody that finally collapsed in 2023. Robyn, for her part, has vehemently denied these accusations, insisting she always "had Meri’s back" and was genuinely concerned for her well-being. Kody has also stepped in to defend his only remaining wife, describing Robyn as the "moral compass" of the family—a title that sits uneasily with his other ex-wives, Janelle and Christine.
The breakdown of trust between the women is not merely emotional; it is deeply rooted in the complicated financial web that has governed the family for years. One of the most significant revelations from the recent specials involves the purchase of Robyn’s five-bedroom home in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was revealed that when the family lived in Las Vegas, the profits from the sale of Meri’s home were funneled directly into the down payment for Robyn’s Arizona property. Janelle Brown also contributed significant funds to ensure Robyn and Kody had a stable home base. However, when the time came for the family to settle their assets and sell the 14-acre Coyote Pass property, the "gifts" became a major point of contention.
Janelle and Meri both expressed frustration over the lack of reimbursement for their initial investments. Meri, in particular, detailed a "hairy" negotiation process where Kody allegedly attempted to silence her by demanding she sign a confidentiality agreement before finalizing the land sale. "Why are you trying to silence me?" Meri demanded, noting that she refused to sign away her right to speak. Kody, meanwhile, expressed bitterness over the situation, claiming that he felt "sh-t talked" by his exes despite his insistence that everyone would eventually receive their 25 percent share of the land profits. The Coyote Pass property, which was once the dream of a unified polygamous future, finally sold in April 2025, allowing the women to finally sever their final financial ties to the patriarch.
As the family structure has dissolved, the wives have taken vastly different paths toward healing. Christine Brown, the first to leave the plural marriage, has found a new life with husband David Woolley. The two wed in a lavish ceremony in October 2023, an event Kody surprisingly admitted to watching. In a moment of rare vulnerability, Kody shared that he "smiled through the entire thing," acknowledging that Christine had finally found her "dream come true." However, even in this new chapter, the ghosts of the past remain. Christine revealed that she felt "betrayed" by Robyn for years, claiming she could never trust her with confidences because Robyn would inevitably report back to Kody, leading to domestic conflict.
Janelle Brown is also moving toward a clean break, revealing that she is seeking a "spiritual divorce" from Kody, modeled after the one Meri received from their church on the grounds of abandonment. Janelle, who was never legally married to Kody during their 29-year union, joked that had she been a legal wife, she would have pursued half of his assets. Instead, she is focusing on her independence, though she remains skeptical of the dating world. Despite her friend David Woolley’s attempts to set her up on dating apps, Janelle remains hesitant, noting that being married to Kody was "a lot of work" and that she isn’t eager to jump back into a high-maintenance relationship.
The collateral damage of the family’s collapse is perhaps most visible in Kody’s relationships with his 18 children. Kody acknowledged that his bonds with the majority of his adult children are "strained" or non-existent. Madison Brush, Janelle’s eldest daughter, has reportedly not spoken to her father in over two years. The estrangement is so deep that Madison did not even inform Kody of her fourth pregnancy; he learned the news through other channels. Madison’s sister, Ysabel, also admitted that while she still loves her father, they "do not talk very often."
Kody attributes these fractured relationships to "trash talk and innuendo" that he believes his ex-wives have fed to the children. However, his daughter Mykelti Padron offered a different perspective, suggesting that the rift could be healed if Kody took accountability for his own actions rather than blaming the mothers or the children themselves. "If he just said, ‘Look, I understand I did blank wrong. I’m sorry. Can we talk about it?’ I feel like that would go such a long way," Mykelti noted.
The shift from a sprawling polygamous household to Kody and Robyn’s current monogamous life has brought its own set of challenges. Robyn, who entered the family hoping for the "sister wife experience," expressed sadness over the loss of the collective family unit. She claimed that she turned down multiple monogamous marriage proposals in her youth because she was committed to the ideal of plural marriage. Now, she and Kody find themselves as "unintentional monogamists," a transition Kody described with a mix of affection and anxiety. He famously remarked that while a polygamist often gets "more than he wants," a monogamist might find themselves "not getting enough," a comment aimed at their intimate life that sparked significant conversation among the show’s fanbase.
Reflecting on the "failure of the family," Kody admitted that he struggled to divide his devotion equally among four wives. He confessed that his intense drive to ensure Robyn was "safely kept"—which included placing her in a multi-million dollar home while other wives lived in more modest conditions—stirred up a level of jealousy that the family could not survive. He also touched upon his own personal struggles, suggesting that "male menopause" and a drop in testosterone might have contributed to his lack of desire to continue the "hard work" required to maintain plural unions.
Despite the public and messy nature of their separation, the former spouses are occasionally reminded of the unique history they share. Christine and Kody, for instance, discovered they are actually third cousins once removed—a fact that became a running joke within the family and highlighted the tight-knit nature of the community they once called home. Janelle also recalled the early years of the marriage, noting that her own mother, Sheryl, originally tried to "save" her from polygamy, only to end up marrying Kody’s father, Winn Brown, just months before Janelle and Kody wed.
As the dust settles on Season 20, the Brown family is unrecognizable from the group that first appeared on television over a decade ago. With Coyote Pass sold and the wives pursuing independent lives, the era of "multiplying love" has officially come to an end, replaced by a complex landscape of hard-won boundaries, financial independence, and the difficult search for reconciliation.
