The Sister Wives family is a little lighter today after news broke that another wife has ended her marriage to Kody Brown. On Friday, InTouch Weekly confirmed that Janelle Brown had officially ended her spiritual marriage to Kody Brown.
Once the news made the rounds, fans went looking for clues and other answers. “Janelle is a strong independent woman and realized she can do it on her own,” InTouch reports, adding that the source said Janelle “outgrew” her relationship with Kody Brown. They had been spiritually married since 1993.
Videos by PopCulture.com
The outlet adds that fans quickly saw that Janelle Brown had already seemingly confirmed the split with an updated Instagram bio. After the report went live, many noticed Brown had gone from “a sister wife” with a focus on her family to the much simpler, “Just me.” She capped it with a smiling emoji.
While many could point to the departure of Christine Brown and her connection to Janelle Brown as the spark that led to the split, others point to the COVID-19 pandemic. So many relationships crumbled and went sour during those tense pandemic periods. The Sister Wives clan had also moved to their new stomping grounds in Flagstaff, Arizona before the illness spread.
“In the last 18 months, I’ve realized that I’m pretty good,” Janelle said on an episode at the time. “I’m independent, and I’m not going to stand here and be yelled at. I just don’t need it. I don’t deserve it, and I don’t need it.”
None of this is something that sits well with Kody Brown’s domineering personality and family rules, leaving the split out in the open as inevitable. InTouch also adds that the family’s faith, a fundamentalist offshoot of Mormonism called Apostolic United Brethren, views a man initiating a divorce as a weakness.
“That’s why [Kody] wants them to leave,” Kristyn Decker, Christine Brown’s aunt, told the outlet. “If they’re going to, if they kick him out, then they are looked down upon much worse. Kody’s got to get them to [leave on their own].”
