Sister Wives’ Janelle Brown was married to Meri’s brother before Kody
In a shock confession, Sister Wives star Janelle Brown is opening up on her past, and it seems her familial ties were crossed. She was previously married to co-star, Meri’s brother, before Kody Brown.
Janelle Brown had a short-lived marriage to co-star Meri’s brother Janelle Adam in 1988, before they divorced in 1990. She said it “just didn’t take” before she later tied the knot with Kody Brown.
“I don’t think we even exist in the same universe anymore” 😳 Janelle lets Kody know it’s OVER on #SisterWives, Sunday at 10/9c! pic.twitter.com/OLOFvA0q8q
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Janelle was married to Meri’s brother
Janelle was previously married to Meri Brown‘s brother, Adam Barber. The Sister Wives star tied the knot with him in the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City in 1988, and lived together for six months.
Barber has appeared on a few episodes of Sister Wives, while chatting to Meri, but it was never mentioned on camera that he was once married to Janelle for a brief period.
In the Brown Family’s 2012 book, Becoming Sister Wives, Janelle wrote that she met Adam in high school and that she “was quite taken” by him. At the time, she had been raised in the Mormon religion.
He later converted to the polygamous Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) faith. Meri’s family was known to be polygamous, but Adam was not interested in the traditional LDS faith or the AUB.
Still, Adam converted to LDS for Janelle shortly before they got married. “Adam and I had problems right from the start,” she wrote. “We weren’t spiritually, emotionally or romantically compatible.”
She met Kody Brown through Meri
Janelle met Kody years after she divorced Meri’s brother in 1990. She stayed in touch with Adam’s family after the divorce due to her polygamous faith, which she started to investigate in more depth.
Adam would go on to marry several times after Janelle and eventually became the father of nine children. Sadly, he died in October 2023 after a cancer diagnosis.
“Meri’s mother was a really great resource for me,” Janelle said on the Reality Life podcast. “I pretty much made the decision to join the faith….but I was not at Meri’s house all the time. I was there occasionally.”
“I happened to be there one time when Kody came. I was intrigued with the faith… [it] represented something more dynamic or something more robust than the [traditional LDS] faith I had,” she added.
Janelle said she was also intrigued by Kody, who Meri was dating at the time. “When I met Kody just in passing, Meri introduced us,” she said. “I go, ‘Oh,’ I had sort of a feeling. Like, ‘Oh there you are.’”
She double-dated with Meri and Kody
Janelle said she had boyfriends after her divorce from Adam, and would often double-date with Meri and Kody. “They were my token polygamist friends. I was 20,” she said. “It felt cool to have unique friends.”
When Meri and Kody got married, Janelle and her ex attended the wedding. Eventually, Janelle lost touch with Adam, but remained close to Meri and Kody, and suggested to them that she join the family.
Kody and Janelle went on to eventually get married in 1993, but she left him in 2022. She told Kate Casey‘s Reality Life podcast, “I think we can safely say both of my marriages were mistakes.”
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