TLC
Sister Wives’ Janelle Brown Prepares for 1st Holiday Season Since Kody Brown Split: ‘Looking Forward’
Sister Wives star Janelle Brown is celebrating the holidays on her terms as she prepares for her first holiday season as a single woman following her split from Kody Brown.
“Not as early as some decorate but we are ready for all things holiday,” Janelle, 54, wrote via Instagram on Monday, November 13, as she shared a picture of her brightly lit Christmas tree. “I’ll be cooking with my Flagstaff kids and a few of their friends this Thanksgiving. Looking forward to just being a homebody for this year’s celebration.”
Janelle’s holiday plans the previous year were a point of contention with her ex as he had major tension with their sons Gabe Brown and Garrison Brown at the time. Fans of the TLC series watched as the father and sons butt heads over Kody’s strict COVID rules. Their drama hit a boiling point when Kody, 54, didn’t wish Gabe, 22, a happy birthday in October 2022.
Apart from Gabe and Garrison, 25, Janelle and Kody share kids Logan, Maddie, Hunter and Savanah.
Kody’s fourth and rumored “favorite” wife, Robyn Brown, called their Christmas celebration “tragic” during season 18 of the series as she felt the patriarch “could’ve worked” something out with Gabe and Garrison to reunite the large family.
However, Kody’s third wife, Christine Brown, recounted a text message thread about another Christmas gathering that seemingly disproved Robyn’s claims of wanting to reunite the family.
“It was about the kids getting together, exchanging gifts and everything, and there was a lot that happened on the text chain,” Christine, 51, told producers in a confessional during the September 17 episode. “At the end of all of it, Robyn just said, ‘I’m done with this and obviously it’s an effort in futility.’”
The Cooking With Just Christine star recounted that a few days later, “[Robyn] and Kody decided that they weren’t safe anymore doing the sibling exchange.”
The scene then cut to Robyn, 45, emphasizing that while she “wanted everyone in her house,” she didn’t “want to watch a fight go down between Kody and the boys.”
“The reason we didn’t get together for Christmas is because at the end of that text chain, there was an obvious division,” Christine concluded. “So it’s like, ‘OK, let’s just be honest where we’re at.’ That was an obvious separation.”
Christine announced her separation from Kody in November 2021. Just more than one year later, In Touch exclusively confirmed that the Brown patriarch and Janelle called it quits in December 2022. Janelle would later reveal that her issues with Kody and their sons “put enough pressure” on their marriage to the point where it felt like “it really did break.”
“I felt like I had to walk this tightrope, I had to choose between having my boys in my house or having Kody there,” Janelle told People in August 2023. “So when Kody would come, the boys would have to be out of the house. I’d have to spray everything down with Lysol and stuff because he was very afraid of getting the virus from them. So yeah, it became really stressful. And then, it slowly evolved as they started to get angrier and angrier with each other.”
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