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Sister Wives’ Christine Brown Says It Was ‘Hard’ for Meri to Find Out Kody Melted Her Wedding Ring
Sister Wives stars Christine Brown and Janelle Brown weighed in on Kody Brown’s decision to melt his wedding ring from his first wife, Meri Brown, after Robyn Brown joined the family.
“Meri’s very sentimental about the ring that she gave Kody and I think it bothered her when he melted down the wedding ring,” Janelle, 54, told Us Weekly in November. Christine, 51, added, “I know it did. That was really hard.” She also described the “ring thing” as “so interesting.”
Christine spilled the tea about Kody, 54, and Meri’s ring drama during part two of the Sister Wives season 18 tell-all special, which will air on Sunday, December 3. In a preview for the episode, she admitted, “There’s a back story here. I don’t feel like it’s all the way my place [to share], but here we are.”
She explained that Kody and Meri, 52, both had wedding rings when they legally married in 1990. However, Meri noticed that Kody was no longer wearing his ring from her at some point after Robyn, 45, entered the picture in 2010. Kody divorced Meri and legally married Robyn in 2014 so he could adopt her children from a previous relationship. However, he remained spiritually married to Meri.
“He melted down the ring, saved the gold, saved the diamonds,” Christine told host Sukanya Krishnan. “Well, Meri found out. She’s like, ‘Well, where’s my ring? You don’t wear it anymore.’ He’s like, ‘I melted it down.’ Just like that. He’s like, ‘I don’t want Meri to have control over me and power over me anymore.’”
After Kody and Robyn got married, the wives all designed a new Claddagh ring for themselves and the family patriarch to wear. However, during an October episode of Sister Wives, which was filmed in 2022, Meri noticed that Kody had replaced the Claddagh ring with another new piece of jewelry that was seemingly from Robyn. She confronted him about it but was not given a direct explanation.
“It’s weird that he’s being so awkward about it,” Meri said at the time. “If he doesn’t want me to see the ring, don’t wear it to my house. I did notice that it was replacing the Claddagh ring that we all used to wear together. I have no idea what this ring is or where it came from. If he got it, if Robyn got it for him, if they got it together. I literally have no idea and frankly I don’t care.”
Meanwhile, Meri was also “extremely frustrated” with Christine for sharing the story about Kody melting down her original wedding ring, which was not something that she had openly spoken about in the past.
“That is my story to tell when, where and how I want to,” Meri said in the tell-all preview. “And somebody else took it upon themselves to tell that story and now I’m being forced to talk about it. I’m not happy about it.”
Meri and Kody announced that they decided to “permanently terminate” their marriage at the beginning of 2023. The split came following his breakups from Christine Brown and Janelle Brown.
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