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Kody Brown rose to stardom in 2010 when his atypical family was featured in TLC’s reality television series “Sister Wives.” Curious viewers flocked to the television network, intrigued by the show’s premise which, as its name suggests, gave viewers an intimate glimpse into the life of an American polygamous family. Viewers watched as Kody and his three sister wives courted a new wife, who changed the relationship dynamics in the family so much that the once polygamous family patriarch is now in a monogamous marriage. For some time, most fans concentrated on the dynamic between Kody and the wives or the relationship amongst the four wives – the large family’s children were a mere afterthought. However, Gwendolyn Brown, Kody and his third wife Christine’s daughter, is creating ripples across American news sites with explosive revelations about growing up in the polygamous family. Recently, she made the following shocking accusations against Kody Brown, and showed fans another side of the patriarch by exposing her strained relationship with him.
Kody and Christine
In 2021, Christine Brown announced her split from Kody Brown after 25 years of marriage, starting an exodus that left Kody in a monogamous marriage with his fourth wife, Robyn. Kody and Christine’s journey began in March 1994, just a year after Kody married his second wife, Janelle. Christine knew she was destined to join a polygamous family years before she met Kody. Growing up in a polygamous family herself, she aspired to have supportive sister wives with whom she would raise her children. In fact, she once admitted that she wanted sister wives to raise children with communally, more than she wanted a husband.
Besides hoping to be part of a polygamous family, Christine was specific about the order in which she would join the family of her dreams. She wanted to be a third wife and justified her choice by confessing that she did not want to be any man’s only wife, hence her objection to being a first wife. Similarly, she did not want to be a second wife, since she felt that the second wife typically drives a wedge between a man and his first wife. According to her, the third wife healed a family by mellowing out the infamous first-wife-second-wife dynamic; besides, being a third wife seemed easy. With these beliefs in mind, Christine jumped at the opportunity of becoming Kody’s third wife and gaining two sister wives.
For years, Christine enjoyed a flourishing marriage, a cordial relationship with fellow sister wife, Janelle, and bore six children, Aspyn, Mykelti, Paedon, Gwendolyn, Ysabel and Truly. In 2010, Christine’s position as Kody’s youngest and, unofficially, favorite wife was upended when Kody took a fourth wife, Robyn. Christine reported feeling jealous of the family’s fourth sister wife, even before she became part of the family officially, when she learned that Kody helped his new bride pick her wedding dress.
Her relationship with Kody started to deteriorate the moment Robyn joined the family. She threw accusations of favoritism at him, watched him spend less time with the rest of the family and more time with Robyn and her children, and reached a point where the polygamous nature of her marriage and family made her perpetually miserable and angry. However, she didn’t make a conscious decision to end her marriage until Kody showed total disregard for the health and life of one of their daughters.
'Sister Wives' stars Kody and Christine Brown break up after 25 years https://t.co/a9EzJ17wA2 pic.twitter.com/9Q4Aq9IYyr
— Page Six (@PageSix) November 2, 2021
The incident that made Christine Brown decide to end her spiritual marriage to Kody was the same incident that led Gwendolyn Brown to start opening up about her relationship with her father, and his relationship with the rest of the family. In 2016 Gwen’s sister Ysabel was diagnosed with scoliosis. She wore a brace and went to therapy hoping to avoid surgery, but the curve in her spine remained and she had no other choice but to have surgery. Her operation was scheduled for September 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Gwen and Ysabel’s older sister Mykelti shocked fans when she revealed that Kody wouldn’t accompany the family to New Jersey for the operation. True to her revelation, Kody did not show up to support his daughter and hold her hand through the daunting experience. He blamed the pandemic, claiming that it was risky for him to travel. Ysabel addressed his father’s absence and lack of support in tears, stating that his priorities had changed. Christine walked out of her marriage the following year, announcing her exit from the relationship to the whole world. Her experiences in the last years of her marriage scarred Christine so much that she even denounced polygamy.
Gwendolyn Brown
Gwen is Christine and Kody’s fourth child and Kody’s tenth child overall. Since her birth in 2001, she lived with her siblings and their parents in Utah until Kody moved his large family to Las Vegas, afraid of prosecution under Utah’s anti-polygamy laws. After living in Las Vegas for a few years, Gwen and the entire Brown family moved the family to Arizona, after Kody and his wives decided that Las Vegas was not a good place to raise their children. Gwen went to high school in Arizona, and was accepted into Northern Arizona University, where she met her fiancé. In 2020, Gwen came out momentarily as bisexual by editing her Twitter bio to read “raging bisexual” and then deleting it after a few moments. She came out officially a year later, and is engaged to Beatriz Queiroz to whom she will marry in July.
The Real Kody
Every fan of “Sister Wives” agrees that Christine Brown was the most outspoken and bold sister wife, and raised an equally bold woman in her daughter Gwen. Throughout her childhood, viewers knew her as one of Christine and Kody’s children who did not say much or appear in the show as often as their parents. However, when Kody had Ysabel in tears and feeling abandoned by her father, Gwen spoke up and made it her mission to show everyone the side of her father only the family saw, or perhaps chose to ignore.
According to Gwen, Kody is an absent father despite spending most of his kids’ childhoods living next to them. She made the revelation when discussing Kody’s relationship with Ysabel, claiming that her younger sister grew up feeling abandoned by Kody, who only started to wonder why Ysabel is closed off and cold towards him now that she’s all grown up. Kody tried to evade responsibility for the distance between him and Ysabel, but fans previously saw him refuse to fly to New Jersey to support Ysabel, choosing to sit out the pandemic with Robyn and her children. Gwen used the incident to back up the allegations of favoritism that Kody’s ex-wives leveled against him, since, like Christine, Janelle and Meri, she watched as her father stopped paying attention to his older kids to spend all his time with Robyn and the children he shares with her.
Once Gwen started to unmask her father to the world, she was on a roll. She followed up her initial expose with accusations of abuse, claiming that her father made a habit of hitting his children, including that her childhood experience was that Kody was physically abusive towards her. She recounted several instances when Kody would spank her or throw her up in the air to teach her a lesson, or scare her into behaving; sometimes, he would leave bruises on her body. Fans were inclined to believe her, particularly after watching Kody shout aggressively at Christine when he learned of her decision to leave him. Gwen claimed that such incidents expose the real Kody, an absentee father and husband who is prone to violent outbursts but good at fooling viewers with a false image of a firm but fair patriarch who has held his large family together for years.
After calling out Kody’s non-existent relationship with his children, Gwen went after his relationship with Meri, Janelle and Christine, accusing Kody of holding on to his wives like trophies long after he stopped having loving and intimate relationships with them. Once again, Gwen’s outrage was validated when Kody admitted that he no longer loved Meri, and had checked out of their marriage for years, but kept leading her on and letting her believe that they could salvage their relationship. Fans were inclined to side with Gwen when she confessed that she was happy that all the sister wives who wished to leave Kody had left, and are no longer of the polygamous union that bound them together for over two decades.
Kody and Gwen
Clearly, father and daughter aren’t on good terms. Gwen may have only found her voice recently, but isn’t afraid to contradict, fact-check, and call her father out both on and off camera. She refuted his allegations that Christine has turned her and her siblings against him by publicly stating that he had spent her and her siblings’ entire childhoods not showing up for them, and they are over it. Gwen went on to take her mother’s side after her decision to leave her father, and cheered Christine on when she started dating again even when Paedon, Christine and Kody’s only son, expressed reservations about his mother dating again. In addition to standing with Christine’s decision to move on from Kody, Gwen called him a coward for holding Christine and Janelle back, and admitted to liking him less and less every time she watches “Sister Wives.”
Despite Gwen’s constant criticism of Kody, he’s remained quiet where she is concerned. The patriarch blames Christine for poisoning all their children against him, Gwen included, and influencing the negativity with which they perceive him. However, he may have revealed how he feels about Gwen earlier this year, when he failed to show up to her engagement party – fans are curious to see whether he attends her wedding. Some of them are holding out hope that he will salvage his relationship with Gwen, but Christine suspects that he could miss the once-in-a-lifetime event despite being invited. Ultimately, 15 July 2023, the day of Gwen’s wedding, will be the defining moment for her relationship with Kody.
