One man, four wives, and 17 kids — it sounds like the plot of a screwball comedy, but Kody Brown's life is more tragic than you might think.
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00:00One man, four wives, and 17 kids. It sounds like the plot of a screwball comedy,
00:06but Cody Brown's life is more tragic than you might think.
00:10As fans of Sister Wives will already know, Cody Brown had something of a rocky relationship with
00:16two of the sons he shared with his second wife, Janelle. Indeed, Cody was often at odds with
00:21Garrison and Gabriel, particularly due to the favoritism they thought he showed towards their
00:26half-siblings and his fourth wife, Robin.
00:28They're very frustrated. They feel like there's been a real preference for Robin."
00:33Cody didn't exactly help matters in 2022 when he forgot Gabriel's 21st birthday.
00:39Gabriel had apparently spoken to his dad on the phone on the big day,
00:42but deliberately didn't mention his birthday to see if the subject came up.
00:46While Cody later called back and apologized for not remembering the milestone, Gabriel revealed,
00:51"...and that's the last time I ever talked to my dad."
00:54Cody and Janelle Brown suffered every parent's worst nightmare in March 2024,
00:59when one of their six children, Garrison Brown, passed away.
01:02Garrison died by suicide at the age of just 25. In a heartbreaking joint statement posted
01:08on Instagram, Cody and Janelle wrote,
01:10"...he was a bright spot in the lives of all who knew him.
01:13His loss will leave such a big hole in our lives that it takes our breath away."
01:18In his first major interview six months following the tragedy,
01:21Cody expressed sadness that things between the pair had become so fraught. He told People magazine,
01:26"...the only regret is just, take advantage of the time. I want to go out to dinner again.
01:31I want to sit down. I want to have a beer. I want Garrison to try and make me laugh because
01:35he was that way. The only regret is just, gosh, I would just do that more often."
01:39The trauma of losing Garrison ended up altering Cody's entire outlook on life.
01:44He says that he intends to stop worrying about the unimportant things in life,
01:48although his biggest goal is to watch his kids find peace. He said,
01:52"...I hope all my children marry and have children. That's what I hope,
01:55and I hope they find happiness in those places."
01:58Cody has suffered loss on more than one occasion. In 2013, his younger brother died in a motorcycle
02:04collision at the age of just 34. Curtis Brown was the seventh child of Janelle and Winn Brown.
02:10As well as working as a gas and oil completions consultant, he was a talented philosopher and
02:15poet. In the wake of Curtis' death, Cody tweeted,
02:18"...amazing man who'll be missed."
02:20Eagle-eyed viewers of Sister Wives may have spotted Curtis popping up in the fourth season
02:24episode, Brown Boys Do Vegas. As the title implies, the episode saw Cody join Curtis
02:30and their two siblings, Michael and Scott, for an all-guys vacation.
02:34We're out of here.
02:37Cody Brown and his third wife, Christine, endured a major scare in the mid-2010s when
02:42their daughter, Truly, started to experience kidney failure. Then, just three years old,
02:47the youngster spent 11 days in hospital after her vital organs began to shut down.
02:52Luckily, she pulled through, but as her mom explained on Instagram nine years later,
02:57the trauma still runs deep.
02:58Christine felt compelled to post about the matter in 2023 after finding two drawings from the time.
03:04In the first, Truly is hooked up to a dialysis machine in hospital, and in the second,
03:09she's the picture of health as she's preparing for a trip to Disneyland.
03:12Truly had been promised a trip to the Mouse House once she recovered,
03:16and her parents stayed true to their word. In the post, Christine wrote,
03:19"...that was the day she started to get better. So glad I kept these pictures to remind me of miracles."
03:25Truly Brown isn't the only child of Cody and Christine to have suffered major health problems.
03:30In 2020, Isabel Brown had to undergo back surgery to help with her scoliosis.
03:35Although Truly's time in hospital had a happy ending, things weren't quite so easy for Isabel.
03:39This is because, while Christine stayed with her daughter during her five-day stint in the hospital,
03:44Cody was nowhere to be seen. Determined to keep to his own strict COVID-19 guidelines,
03:50Cody refused to travel from his Arizona home to the East Coast, much to Isabel's disappointment.
03:55Her resentment grew worse when she discovered that, just months later,
03:59her dad made the journey to officiate a pal's wedding. Cody later tried to justify his apparent
04:04double standards.
04:06"...Isabel's surgery was at a time and a situation where it would have required that I'm six or eight
04:11weeks away from home."
04:12He went on to explain that he only spent four days away from home for the wedding.
04:16That excuse didn't wash with Isabel or Christine, however. Notably, Christine and Cody's marriage
04:22didn't last much longer after that. They ended up announcing their divorce in November 2021.
04:28"...who he is and the choices that he's making, I cannot respect this man."
04:33During one particular episode of their podcast, The Brothers Random,
04:37Cody's siblings, Travis and Michael Brown, delved deep into their early years.
04:41The brothers grew up in Wyoming's Apostolic United Brethren,
04:45a polygamous compound that they describe as a cult. They also revealed that their father,
04:50Winn Brown, was abusive both physically and emotionally toward his children.
04:54According to Travis, Winn had also grown up in a similar environment and perpetuated the
04:59abuses he suffered with his own children. While both Travis and Michael claim that they have
05:04successfully broken the cycle with their own children, the same can't necessarily be said
05:08for Cody. In fact, Cody himself has admitted that his childhood experiences impacted on his
05:14own abilities as a father.
05:16"...I have my own daddy issues, so now I've passed that on to my sons have daddy issues."
05:21For all the care they took to avoid contracting the disease,
05:24Cody and his wife Robin contracted COVID-19 in 2022.
05:28Cody had long obsessed over following pandemic guidelines,
05:31even to the detriment of his familial relationships. But after years of doing
05:36everything he could to avoid that dreaded positive test, he caught the virus anyway.
05:41Cody and Robin each experienced different effects of the disease.
05:44Robin had it worse physically, as she had to be admitted to hospital after having trouble breathing.
05:50I think that I was sitting there and wondering if she was going to live."
05:54Cody, meanwhile, suffered mentally. Despite being described as a
05:58sunny, larger-than-life character by his family, he apparently became anxious and
06:03depressed after catching COVID, to the extent that he began to seem like a totally different person.
06:09He sounded like he was getting really depressed."
06:13Thankfully, both Robin and Cody made a full recovery.
06:17The polygamous lifestyle isn't particularly conducive to financial stability.
06:21After all, Cody Brown has lots of mouths to feed.
06:24So maybe it's no surprise that before TLC came calling, he struggled to keep his head above water.
06:30Things got so bad that in 2005, Cody and his first wife, Mary Brown, declared bankruptcy.
06:37At that moment in time, Robin hadn't joined the fold,
06:40but Janelle and Christine had, and they all had 12 children among them.
06:44Cody was earning $4,000 per month as a signed shop salesman,
06:48while Mary brought home $625 per month as an awards company engraver.
06:53The United States Bankruptcy Court stated that Cody and Mary only had $10 to call their own,
06:59and that they were being constantly chased by debt collectors for various agencies.
07:03They reportedly owed nearly $137,000 in mortgage payments alone, while they also
07:09racked up approximately $40,000 on their credit card and a near $8,000 tab at their nearest home
07:15depot, plus more. Luckily, everything worked out financially for the family, as they ended up
07:20starring in their hit TV series. Still, considering all the drama and tragedy that has unfolded since
07:27then, it's probably fair to ask, was it worth it? Cody Brown's family life took another dramatic
07:33turn in 2024 when he was sued by Christine over the custody of Truly. In another twist,
07:39court documents revealed that Christine was also seeking confirmation of Truly's paternity.
07:44Cody's name hadn't been included on her birth certificate.
07:47That wasn't all that Christine was asking for, either. She also filed papers for child support
07:52and attempted to obtain a domestic relations injunction. The latter is designed to reduce
07:57the possibility of any domestic violence and to prevent one parent from making significant
08:01decisions without the other's input. The relationship between Cody and Christine
08:05had soured when Christine left the rest of the Browns to go and live in Utah with Truly.
08:10At the time, Christine claimed that the move was in everyone's best interests,
08:14but Cody disagreed.
08:16That's such BS rationalization that I'm laughing now because it's ridiculous."
08:23At the start of November 2021, Cody Brown was husband to no fewer than four wives. Fast forward
08:30just 14 months later, however, and that number had been reduced to just one. Perhaps understandably,
08:36Cody felt pretty deflated about all this. And his mood didn't improve when two of his ex-wives made
08:41plans to take their respective families away from the Browns' main residence in Flagstaff, Arizona.
08:47Christine was the first to jump ship, taking Truly with her to Utah. Fellow ex-wife Janelle decided
08:52to up sticks soon after, choosing to live the RV life and flit between North Carolina and Flagstaff.
08:58Then, in 2023, Mary Brown confirmed that she also intended to relocate to the Beehive State.
09:04These departures apparently got Cody thinking that his exes had executed
09:08some kind of vengeful master plan against him.
09:11"'Anything they can do that excludes me is a punishment to me.'"
09:19To his credit, Cody has admitted that he deserves a lot of the blame for the
09:23dissolution of his marriages, telling People magazine,
09:25"'I could have done a lot better.'"
09:27If you or anyone you know may be the victim of child abuse,
09:30contact the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-CHILD, 1-800-422-4453.
09:38Or contact their live chat services.