‘Sister Wives’ Star Christine Brown Explains Why She Felt Like a ‘Basement Wife’ on Tell-All

Kody Brown’s estranged spouse Christine Brown explained why she felt like a “basement wife” in her plural family on part 2 of the season 16 Sister Wives tell-all.  

“I didn’t know at that time about basement wives … I chose to just let it happen. I chose to be weaker. I just did,” the mother of six, 49, said about what it felt like to live with Kody, 53, and fellow sister wives Janelle, Meri and Robyn Brown in one house in Utah during the special which aired on Sunday, February 6. 

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Christine admitted that she took onus upon herself because she could have walked away any time, telling host Sukanya Krishnan that it took her some deep-thinking and consideration to get to this point.

“Every single day of my life, I wake up and I have a choice to make if I’m in a situation like that. And in the end, I would love to just be strong and be like, ‘No, no, no, no,’ and just cause more contention. … Or, I can just go, ‘OK, OK. That’s fine, that’s fine, that’s fine,’ and make it easier. But then, in the end, I lose myself,” the TLC personality explained, adding, “The cost is me.” 

“I put everybody first most of the time. I put whatever Kody needed [first],” Christine continued, noting she was the “constant” in her family. “I was like, ‘I can be the peacemaker here.'”

When asked for her opinion, Janelle, 52, said that she didn’t believe there was a “hierarchy” within their brood and Robyn, 43, agreed, stating she was “surprised” that Christine ever felt that way. 

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Christine first brought up the term during an episode that aired in March 2021, and said she viewed herself more as a “basement wife” versus a “queen wife” in her relationship with Kody.

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“The one house [in Lehi] was so hard — I never felt like I was queen wife or queen mom. Never,” Christine confessed during a heart-to-heart with Robyn. 

“Someone needed to take the basement — not fun, not a fun choice to make. It was super hard — I hated it. Because I hate conversations so bad, I just put my needs last, every single time,” she said of their dynamic. “If you have a situation where there’s a wife that’s a queen bee, well, the other wife goes in the basement, and she doesn’t matter as much. And I’ve seen it enough. I’ve seen it a lot.”

Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.