‘Seeking Sister Wife’ Briney Family Not Returning to Show After ‘Traumatic Experience’

The cast of Seeking Sister Wife just got smaller, as the Briney family has left the show due to a “traumatic experience.”

Drew, April, Auralee and Angela Briney were a staple of Seeking Sister Wife, the new spin-off series from TLC‘s polygamy-themed reality show. However, they will not be back for Season 2, as they explained on their family blog, claiming that TLC “pulled” them from the series. According to the post, April left the Briney family, and the three remaining spouses and 13 children are still trying to recover.

“Without getting into many details here, simply put, April left our family and took Drew’s and her children out of state (back to Utah) under the pretext of taking them for a local hike not far from our Oregon home,” Angela wrote. “She never came back.”

April left the family during the very first week of filming Seeking Sister Wife. For a month, she reportedly refused to communicate with the rest of the family at all, leaving them wondering.

“The grief and heartache those of us left behind have been experiencing has been excruciating,” the post went on.

From the sound of it, TLC filmed the entire ordeal with the Brineys, yet have now decided not to air it. The family said that even they only learned that they would not be featured on the season one month before its premiere. However, while they are disappointed, they are not angry.

“Our story was simply too heavy, with too much controversy and we don’t blame them,” the post read.

April reportedly left the Brineys in May. The family did not get a chance to see her or her children until late December. Meanwhile, April has reportedly been making “accusations” against the rest of the family, which the Briney’s did not detail in their post.

“The lifestyle and family she defended so fervently in the past of her own free will and choice, she now claims victim of,” they wrote. “We’ll leave it at that.”

The Brineys did lament their removal from the show, claiming that TLC had missed “a very unique opportunity to tell a story that’s never been told before – that of the family left behind when a plural wife leaves.”

“The story of those who leave has been told many times,” they continued. “but we often don’t consider how the remaining family deals with that grief and how they try to move on in life.”

The post even included a photo of April Briney holding a sign reading “I’m a wife not a victim” at a protest against Utah’s HB99 law, which makes polygamy a felony in the state.

“We know that the mentally stable April would not have done the things that she’s done,” they wrote.

Seeking Sister Wife airs on Sundays at 10 p.m. on TLC.