Janelle Brown shared new details about her mother’s marriage to Kody Brown’s father in a Season 19 episode of “Sister Wives.”
While shopping for wedding dresses with a newly engaged Christine Brown, Janelle Brown reflected on her own wedding to Kody Brown, which marked the beginning of his plural marriage.
Before marrying Janelle Brown, Kody Brown was married to Meri Brown. He went on to marry two other women — Christine and Robyn Brown — for a total of four wives. He is now only married to Robyn Brown.
“I actually didn’t have a wedding dress. When Kody and I got married, my family was very upset with my decision to join the faith. So most of my family was not talking to me or associating with me,” Janelle Brown explained in a confessional interview. “I had a green dress I wore. That was it.”
The reality star said only one member of her family was in attendance to witness her marry Kody Brown: Her mom.
“My mom was at the wedding because she came to save me from the polygamists and ended up marrying Kody’s dad three months before we got married,” she said. “So my mom was obviously OK with it. But the rest of my family was really not OK with it. So they didn’t come.”
Janelle Brown’s late mother Sheryl Usher was one of three women married to Kody Brown’s late father, William Winn Brown, per his obituary. William Winn Brown had nine children with his three wives, including Kody Brown.
Polygamy was a new experience for both Janelle Brown and her mother.
“I wasn’t in a faith that embraced plural marriage. I was from a monogamous faith. I began to look at their faith objectively and I became intrigued by it,” she previously said in an episode of “Sister Wives.”
Janelle Brown went on to describe that she took the time to research polygamy before diving in.
“After several months of investigation, I decided that it was for me. Before that, I had just put my interest in (Kody) in the back of my mind. After I had joined the faith, it became very apparent to me that what I’d been experiencing, how I’d been feeling towards Kody were stirrings that I did belong in his family,” she said. “But I really couldn’t process it until I had actually embraced the faith. And then all of a sudden it made sense to me.”
Janelle Brown and Kody Brown have another connection. Janelle Brown was briefly married to Meri Brown’s brother, Adam Barber, as she wrote in the family’s memoir, “Becoming Sister Wives,” published in 2012. She wrote that they only lived together for six months.
Through the separation, she remained close with Barber’s family, including Meri. In the memoir, Janelle Brown wrote of meeting Kody Brown, “I was in the middle of a horrible divorce and had no idea how to handle the sensation Kody’s entrance conjured in me.”
In November 2024, Meri Brown reflected on Janelle Brown entering into the marriage, given their connections.
“It took a minute for me to get my head wrapped around it,” Meri Brown said on the “Miss Understood” podcast. “The whole thing was interesting. There was emotions. Let’s just say, there was emotions.”
But she said she was “able to work through it