Meri Brown is urging her followers to “know who you are.” Just hours after Sister Wives viewers took to social media to criticize Kody Brown’s statement during the latest episode that his wives must “conform to patriarchy” after Christine Brown left him, Brown took Instagram to share a cryptic post with her fans.
On her Instagram Story Sunday night, Brown, whose relationship with Kody has been “dead” for years, shared a quote that read, “The trick is as long as you know who you are and what makes you happy it doesn’t matter how others see you.” Brown added a sticker that read “THIS” and pointed to the quote on the post, which was shared soundtracked by Martina McBride’s song “Happy Girl.”
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While Brown did not specify what prompted the post, it came just shortly after the latest episode of the Brown family’s TLC reality series Sister Wives, which in its most recent season has been documenting the aftermath of Kody and Christine’s split. Sunday night’s episode angered many fans, however, when Kody, who also has wives Janelle Brown and Robyn Brown, told his wives that they must “conform to patriarchy” after Christine announced her decision to leave her marriage and also denounced her former belief in polygamy.
“I’m going to be the head of my household again and so I’m not going to be circumvented in that,” Kody declared. “And so if everybody’s willing to conform to patriarchy again, I guess, because I’ve been fighting to make everybody happy. My bitterness is that out of trying to do that and not having the family that I had thought about and designed.”
The moment not only sent shockwaves through the Brown family – Janelle responded in a side interview, “Yeah, I didn’t know I had signed up for patriarchy. That’s not what we all agreed on in the very beginning, but [shrugs].” – but also through viewers. As the episode aired, many took to social media to react, with one person writing, “his monolog right now is truly disgusting.” Somebody else tweeted, “Patriarchy? Head of the house? Respect? This man is sick.”
Brown was Kody’s first wife. The former couple married in 1990 before legally separating in 2014. Despite their split, however, Brown has stuck by Kody’s side. Discussing their relationship woes back in Season 10, Brown said, “I also know that my goal and my purpose and my point is to just be a better person and to just look at the family because there’s value to that. There is value to this family that we have created.” Sister Wives Season 11 airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC, and is also available to stream on Discovery+.