'Sister Wives' star Kody Brown, four spouses explain the motivation to chronicle their 'plural marriage'
'Sister Wives' star Kody Brown, along with his four spouses, explain the motivation to chronicle their 'plural marriage' for hit TLC series.
Kody Brown and his wife Meri have opened up about the disconnect in their relationship.
On Sunday’s episode of "Sister Wives," Brown’s four spouses – Meri, Christine, Janelle and Robyn – were hunkered down in their homes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
And despite not seeing each other as frequently, Brown, 52, and Meri, 50, admitted that very little has changed in their union.
"They say that a person needs four hugs a day just to survive," said Meri in a confessional, as quoted by People magazine on Monday.
Kody Brown and his four wives share a combined 18 children. (Getty)
"I love hugs and touch, from the appropriate person, you know what I mean?" she continued. "And when you don’t have that, it feels really, really lonely."
"I’m really careful about pushing Kody because I don’t want him to feel like I’m being demanding or pushy or anything like that," Meri shared. "You know, I don’t know what Kody is going to be doing after the two-week quarantine. I don’t know what his plans are – I can’t speak to that, honestly."
According to the outlet, Marie revealed that while Brown visited the other three wives as he went back and forth between the homes, he didn’t come to her house much.
"He doesn’t typically come to my house very often," said Meri. "Maybe now that [our daughter] Mariah and [her fiancée] Audrey are here, he might come and visit them at the end of the two weeks. But he basically is just going to be doing between Janelle and Christine and Robyn – that’s typically what he does. Just calling it like it is."
The family resides in Flagstaff, Arizona. (Photo by Stephen J. Cohen/Getty Images)
Brown acknowledged that he was only seeing his first wife "once in a blue moon."
"There’s just been nothing going on between me and Meri," he told cameras, as quoted by the outlet. "She interacts with the family for the holidays and birthdays. We get together once in a while. I see Meri once in a blue moon, but we quit dating and that’s just probably because I quit calling her to say, ‘Let’s go do something."
The outlet shared that Brown and Meri tied the knot in 1990. Three years later, the couple welcomed sister wife Janelle into their plural marriage, followed by Christine in 1994. Robyn joined the family as a fourth wife in 2010.
Brown was originally only legally married to Meri. However, Meri agreed to divorce Brown so could tie the knot with Robyn in 2014. That legal change would allow Robyn’s three children from a previous marriage to access the same benefits as the rest of Brown’s kids.
'Sister Wives' has been airing since 2010 on TLC. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Brown said he considers himself to be "spiritually" married to his four wives. They share a combined 18 children.
The outlet reported that in 2015, Meri said she was "catfished" after having an online relationship with someone she thought was a man. It turned out to be a woman. Brown and Meri then entered therapy in hopes of repairing their marriage. But in 2018, Brown admitted that he didn’t desire to be intimate with Meri.
"Sister Wives" aims to show how Brown and his family navigate life in a world that seems to shun their lifestyle. The reality TV series has been airing since 2010.
Being married to more than one person, or bigamy is illegal across the United States. The law in Mormon-heavy Utah is considered stricter because of a unique provision that bars married people from living with a second "spiritual spouse."
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Kody Brown married his first wife Meri (wearing blue) in 1990. (Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images)
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned polygamy in 1890 and strictly prohibits it today. The Browns consider themselves fundamentalist Mormons.
Back in 2019, Brown told Fox News that the family has agreed on not considering a fifth wife anytime soon.
"We really took the fifth wife thing off the table a long time ago," said Brown. "And because we don’t want to snub the concept, we’ve always sort of been very casually dismissing it, and I think that’s one reason the question keeps coming up. But it’s technically been off the table as long as we’ve done the show."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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