Why Did Meri Leave Sister Wives? Kody Brown’s Manipulating Nature After Her Emotional Affair Made Things Worse

Kody Brown’s former wife Meri Brown’s departure from Sister Wives didn’t come out of the blue; it was the culmination of years of strain & tension.

Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair! This sentiment rings especially true in the world of reality TV, where emotions are laid bare for the public to see.

And when it comes to the intricate web of relationships within the Brown family from Sister Wives, the dynamic between Kody Brown and his first wife, Meri Brown, easily takes center stage. Now, let’s not beat around the bush—the former has often been accused of playing favorites, particularly when it comes to Robyn Brown, leading to a landslide of emotional rifts with his other wives.

How could favoritism, manipulation, and a lack of emotional support shape such a tangled family tree? Meri Brown’s departure from Sister Wives didn’t happen overnight; it was a slow burn fueled by her ex-husband’s manipulative behavior and the fallout from her own emotional affair, often dubbed the ‘catfishing scandal’.

Sister Wives: The Untangling Story of Meri & Kody Brown

Meri became Kody Brown’s first wife in 1990. They welcomed one child during their nearly 14 years of legal marriage, but in 2014, things took a turn for the worse, leading to their divorce (see Business Insider).

She divorced Kody Brown so he could legally tie the knot to his fourth wife, Robyn Brown, allowing the couple to adopt the latter’s three children from a previous relationship.

However, things took a dramatic turn in 2015 when Meri Brown fell victim to a catfishing scandal that turned her world upside down. This incident put a strain on her relationship with her former husband, who cited a breakdown of trust as the reason for distancing himself from her.

So, it wasn’t much of a shock when Meri Brown chose to seek solace in an emotional affair with a stranger she encountered online. In a tell-all special during season 16 of Sister Wives, she revealed to host Sukanya Krishnan that the cracks in their relationship had appeared long before the scandal. She acknowledged that she hadn’t been intimate with Kody Brown for a decade.

Kody Brown’s manipulative nature became even more apparent on the show in the aftermath of his ex-wife’s emotional catfishing ordeal. But by January 2023, the couple finally announced the end of their marriage. “After more than a decade of working on our relationship in our own unique ways, we have made the decision to permanently terminate our marriage relationship,” they stated on Instagram, bringing their saga to a bittersweet conclusion.

Love in Disguise: Meri Brown’s Tumultuous Journey Through Catfishing

For years, Meri Brown felt like a lone wolf after the fallout from her catfishing scandal, leaving her to sift through the emotional wreckage of a relationship that went belly-up. Kody Brown, her first husband, was unable to forgive her, effectively shutting her out like yesterday’s newspaper.

In 2015, she found herself in the throes of an emotional affair with someone she thought was a dashing international tycoon named Sam Cooper—who, surprise, was actually a woman masquerading as a man. For several months, she was caught up in a web of deception, overlooking the obvious red flags waving right in front of her.

In a sneak peek of the Sister Wives: One on One tell-all (via PEOPLE), aired in 2022, Brown revealed that her former husband ultimately pulled the plug on their relationship:

It just doesn’t make sense to me that he would be so frustrated with Christine and be like, ‘She just made this decision’. We didn’t consult, we didn’t talk, she just made the decision, and then he says, ‘No, I don’t consider myself married to Meri.’ Like, he just made the decision.

While Meri Brown eventually decided to cut ties with Cooper, the fallout didn’t end there. The self-proclaimed tycoon-turned-author even penned a book about their escapade, claiming not to be a catfish at all.

For those in the dark, Sister Wives shines a spotlight on a polygamist family, featuring Kody Brown, his four wives, and their 18 children.