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Sister Wives’ Meri Brown Says She and Kody Brown Are Just ‘Friends’ Amid Season 16 Drama
Sister Wives star Meri Brown revealed she and husband Kody Brown determined they are just “friends” while having a heart-to-heart about their strained relationship.
“Kody and I — we had a conversation recently, that kind of came down to, ‘We’re friends.’ Which I guess is a good thing,” she said with a laugh in a new teaser clip released by Us Weekly on Wednesday, December 15. “I guess I just have hope for more than that.”
Kody Brown and Meri Brown.
Despite his lack of interest in rekindling a romance, the Lizzie’s Heritage Inn owner, 50, tried to keep a positive outlook about the two of them getting back on track.
“Kody has said some things to me more recently that leads me to believe that there’s no repairing our relationship,” Meri, who shares daughter Mariah Brown with the father of 18, said in a confessional. “There are days when I get very, very discouraged. Then there are days that I have so much hope.”
Meri was the first wife to join the polygamous reality TV family, which also includes his other spouses Janelle, Robyn and now-ex Christine Brown. Meri and Kody, 52, got married in April 1990, however, they legally divorced in September 2014 so he could legally wed fourth wife Robyn, 43, and formally adopt her three children from a past relationship. Following their divorce, Meri and Kody remained in a spiritual marriage.
After weathering a catfishing scandal in 2015, Meri and Kody’s relationship has continued to struggle to get back on solid ground. Plus, both of them admitted in the teaser that having more time apart due to quarantining amid the coronavirus pandemic put a further divide between them as a couple and family.
Kody Brown and Meri Brown.
“I always saw one of the main benefits about plural marriage is that anybody in the family would never actually suffer true loneliness,” Kody said in the clip. “The way things have played out for our family, that’s not necessarily true. My relationship with Meri is not the type of relationship where I’m going to talk to her every day.”
Meri revealed that although she had her doubts about a reconciliation, throwing in the towel wasn’t an option either.
“If I quit, if I walk away, then it’s not going to get better,” she explained to the camera about why she wanted to stay with Kody and the rest of their brood in Flagstaff, Arizona. “I’m not going anywhere y’all. You’re stuck with me. Whether you like it or not.”
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
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